Trying Too Hard
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: AU. Jarlaxle and Artemis traveling together as mercenaries. No definite timeline. Artemis seems troubled. Jarlaxle wants to help him sort out his love life. Jarlaxle has his own motives to sort out.
1. Thinking Too Hard

Author's Note: Jarlaxle and Artemis Entreri do not belong to me. I am not R.A. Salvatore; nor did he ask me/beg me/force me to write this. In fact, let us keep hope that he shall never read this, shall we? Also, this story is derived from the idea that Jarlaxle and Artemis' affections are directed towards _each other_. That means this is a male romance.

* * *

Jarlaxle approached him carefully, taking pains to remain unobtrusive in the situation. He hesitated for a moment, listening to Artemis' stilted conversation with the barmaid as the shadows of the inn flickered unevenly across the assassin's face to the rhythm of the limited wind toying with the chandelier of melting candles overhead.

Then he decided it was time to make his presence known. "Ah, have you ever considered that you might be trying too hard?" For the past couple weeks, he'd been treated to the puzzling show of Entreri taking some form of interest towards the female of his species whenever they were in town.

Artemis turned to him, his face impassive and his eyes emoting a question.

"Why don't you simply ask the woman to sleep with you?" the dark elf said, smiling at the plump blonde maid in such a way that she felt included in the conversation. Somehow, the elven mercenary's charisma kept his question from sounding crass or crude.

Without a word, the assassin turned and walked past him with a swirl of his cape, which spoke louder than any words the reserved man could have spoken to express the dismissal. Jarlaxle watched thoughtfully as Artemis Entreri walked out of the room, out of the entire inn, presumably to catch some fresh air or some other token thing humans seemed to say when they wanted to be alone.

Jarlaxle decided to go after him.

First, out of curiosity, Jarlaxle trailed him at a safe distance, wondering where he would go in this small town of wooden houses, chimneys leaking pale smoke against the dusk, those remarkable shades of orange, brown, purple, and blue overhead almost enough to distract the dark elf, even after so many months above ground…but not quite.

He hid in a shadow ironically created by a street lamp, which the humans had erected to drive darkness out. Instead, Jarlaxle found that lights invariably strengthened the darkness around them, almost as if the shadows had to fight in response for their territory.

The assassin appeared to be aimlessly walking around. Of course, the drow mercenary kept a healthy skepticism of the picture of Artemis boredly glancing at a darkened shop window, since he knew that rarely did Artemis Entreri do things without a purpose.

After three more streets, all of which were deserted, poorly lit, and smoky-smelling, Jarlaxle began to admit with mingled shock and dismay that Artemis did seem to be aimlessly wandering. What, then, was his human partner thinking of? The dark elf thought that he must either be intruding upon something immensely private, such as a waking reverie, or something completely meaningless, in which case the mercenary from the Underdark would be annoyed.

To settle the case, he sneaked behind Artemis' back until he was close enough to allow a whisper to be heard, and merely chuckled, knowing that Artemis would divine several things from his display of amusement, chiefly that it was Jarlaxle himself, and not someone else who crept up behind him for dubious reasons.

The assassin spun around, all on alert and perfectly ready to kill someone. Jarlaxle stood patiently with a slight smile on his face, allowing Artemis time to sheath his weapons again. He didn't. "You've been following me," he said.

Jarlaxle inhaled deeply and exhaled. "Enjoying the night air."

Artemis pointed his dagger at the dark elf mercenary, barely pricking Jarlaxle's skin through the thin cloth of the white shirt he wore under his vest that day. "Following me." His expression brooked no argument.

Jarlaxle shrugged. "Perhaps. But what are you doing out here?" He gestured to the sky. "Enjoying the display as orange turns to pink, and pink mellows out to purple, and purple cools to blue…?"

Artemis openly glowered. "Hardly."

Jarlaxle stroked his chin and tipped his head thoughtfully. "This is to be a guessing game, then?" he asked, his face lighting up with anticipation.

Jarlaxle actually took a step back as Artemis wildly overreacted. "Why do you never leave me alone?" he snarled.

Jarlaxle reassessed his position and his companion's temper. "I am your partner," he said. He decided on a soothing smile. "I simply wished to assess your wellbeing –" Artemis made a noncommittal sound of disbelief. " –because I rely on you to help me carry out our very profitable business venture," he added hastily. "After all, it's not every day that it's as easy as this – nor would it be, without your unique skills and knowledge of the silk carpet industry."

His assassin friend seemed only minutely less hostile.

The dark elf decided to take a stab at it. After all, sometimes unexpected risks worked to his benefit; he could afford to take a few losses. "Tell me what's troubling you," he said, radiating a blend of gentle concern and warm compassion. "It will make you feel better."

Entreri snarled, "I don't need to feel better."

Jarlaxle sighed. "As you will," he said. He turned around and walked down the middle of the street, shoulders displaying an attitude of defeat.

After a moment, he could hear almost undetectable footsteps, Artemis reluctantly following him.

In spite of his better sense, Jarlaxle paused, then listened for Artemis' response. No footsteps. Jarlaxle grinned evilly to himself. He kept walking, then as he turned the corner of the street, he paused again. The assassin's footsteps accordingly paused along with him. In some mad way, he realized in a corner of his mind that he was playing some kind of ill advised power game, however small, with Artemis.

He resolved to stop, and quelled the impulse the next time it came. He felt a sense of loss, but then, relinquishing control even in small ways always caused Jarlaxle a few furtive pangs of regret. He walked back to the inn without further incident, making sure that his partner was in tow.

Once inside, he waited, leaning against the doorframe. Not five minutes later, Artemis appeared. His expression was dull with fatigue. He lifted his eyes to Jarlaxle's warily, then walked past, and ascended the threadbare carpeted stairs to the second floor, where their room lay.

After waiting long enough to be sure that Entreri had reached their room and was beginning preparations for the night, Jarlaxle slipped up the staircase and through the door of their shared room.

The assassin was trapping the window with a singularly ingrained looking expression of suspicion. The dark elf paused against the door frame. With a slight toss of his head, the plumes of his wide-brimmed hat bounced. "As I said," he said without waiting for Artemis to finish what he was doing, "have you ever considered that you might be trying too hard?"

"What do you mean by that?" Artemis asked, his fingers working the delicate metal contraptions with practiced ease, though Jarlaxle noted tension in the movements of his fingers. If Artemis had been using the drow signing language, he would have been saying 'I don't trust you'. That was well enough. Jarlaxle cut him some slack for betraying it so obviously because he was a human.

"I mean," Jarlaxle said, shutting the door and applying his own trap, this one magical in nature, by applying one of his wands to the wooden frame, "you are not doing a good job of initiating sexual relationships."

"And you want to help," Artemis said with an implied sneer.

"Yes."

"Why?" Artemis suddenly turned to face him, almost as if he were trying to disconcert an answer from Jarlaxle by surprise. Well, it won't work, Jarlaxle thought, slightly miffed.

"It's distracting you." The mercenary became subtly wheedling. "And it need not be that difficult."

The assassin made a flat gesture with his hand. "I am _not_ going to allow you to use me in some sort of game."

Jarlaxle frowned. "What game?"

Artemis threw himself down on the flat, stiff bed and cupped a pillow to his head. "Keep it that way."

Jarlaxle sat down on the opposite side of the bed and crossed his legs. "I am serious."

"Are you well?"

"I've had about enough of this," Jarlaxle snapped.

Artemis smiled unpleasantly. "Good."

The dark elf, irritated, no longer felt merciful. "I happen to know that you are not as indifferent as you pass yourself off as," he said. His eyes narrowed, though he still wore the eye patch, so only one was visible.

"Do tell."

"It is a common affliction where I come from to not know which direction in which your affections lie."

Artemis considered saying, "The lack of loyalty in drow society is an elemental fact," but he knew that that would just anger Jarlaxle, and the drow mercenary was speaking of something different. He just listened, clutching his pillow.

"To put it bluntly," Jarlaxle said, leaning towards him, "I believe you do not know the difference between being attracted to a woman and being attracted to a man."

Deadly silence. "If you have said what I think you have just said, you are dead where you sit," the assassin said. His face and neck were slightly flushed with anger.

"Then you had better make sure that what you thought I said and what I said are indeed the same thing," Jarlaxle said, his voice taking on the same tone. His face was devoid of humor, and he stared at Artemis quietly.

The human's hand twitched involuntarily with a murderous urge. He slowly sat up, propping himself up on his elbow. He turned to face his elven companion. "What," he said with difficulty, "did you say?"

Jarlaxle paused deliberately. Artemis was beginning to tire of his dramatic mannerisms, and this one in particular. "I said," and he paused again, his voice draining of anger, "I said, perhaps you are confused. It would not be the first time, or the last. It is one of the great commonalities between races that most of us must spend their time going through life confused." He shifted to a weary, even doleful, expression. "I want to lift your confusion."

Entreri resisted the urge to ask if this was another one of the elf's speeches. "I would say you are pretty confused yourself," he said, his expression impassive.

"We are all confused in our own little way," Jarlaxle agreed. "But you…you take the cake, my friend."

"I thought you had barely finished saying that my 'problem' is common."

The dark elf sighed. He leaned back, fingered the brim of his hat, and then set it aside, choosing to lie down, at least temporarily. "But your contradictory nature compacts it," he said.

"Thank you." There was a backhanded compliment in there somewhere, and Artemis acknowledged that he had to have some kind of merit if Jarlaxle found him complex. The master of complexity, he thought, and stifled a yawn. Neither of them had slept in the past forty-eight hours, he realized. They'd been too busy running, running themselves ragged. Escaping the usual threats to their lives. He rubbed his eyes. "What do we do this for, anyway?"

Jarlaxle sat up and froze, eyes wide. "I, _what_?"

He felt as though somehow he'd made a mistake. "Never mind." He hunched back down in the bed and lifted the gray comforter over his shoulder, trying to cut off the unintended switch in conversation.

The first honest admission he'd made to me all day – no, longer than that, all four last months, and I react too clumsily to get more out of him, Jarlaxle thought, cursing himself. "I didn't mean to invalidate the importance of your thought," he said, choosing his words carefully.

The stiffness in Artemis' shoulders relaxed imperceptibly, but the elf caught it. "It was merely unexpected." The man nodded slightly. Jarlaxle felt surprisingly better, as if he'd offered an apology and it had been accepted. He stopped. Wasn't that what I just did? The dark elf thought. How queer. I apologize frequently, but never sincerely. How queer life is.

"It would do us well to get some sleep," Jarlaxle said, more loudly than necessary, as if he were making some effort to cover up what had just happened against all rational course.

That was the last thing he remembered before Artemis' rhythmic breathing proved him to be asleep, and the sound, in turn, lulled Jarlaxle to the point where reverie could pull him into its embrace.

He awoke a few hours later, finding that his head was against the white down pillow and that his hat had ended up clutched in his hand rather tightly. What was he doing that had caused him to grab his hat? He felt groggy, which was unusual, as reverie was nothing at all like sleep, except when he was exceptionally drunk, and he rarely ever imbibed to the point where it intruded upon his rest.

He'd tried sleep in his day, always willing to do anything once, and sleep felt remarkably…like this.

Jarlaxle sat up, holding a hand to his head at the spot where it ached. I was dreaming about _us_. You and me. He glanced over at the assassin.

His dark hair was mussed, and his expression was twisted into an unpleasant grimace of mingled pain and despair as he shifted slightly against his side of the bed, tugging the covers along with him.

Jarlaxle sighed. I didn't really need them anyway, he thought.

There had been nothing very unusual about his reverie. He had been dreaming mostly about the exploits of the last seven months, going from the mountains to isolated citadels, to small towns, to forests, anywhere where anyone had a job they were capable of doing, for a reasonable fee. He remembered quite vividly, for some reason, Artemis' disgruntled attempts to chop wood in return for lodging at the only house for miles around in the blizzard that had struck that winter, leaving them at an old man's mercy. Artemis had found him unbearable. It took all of Jarlaxle's charm to keep him from killing the old graybeard and keeping the cottage for himself. Something about that had given rise to what, for all intents and purposes, amounted to a nightmare, tonight.

Jarlaxle glared into the night and rubbed his head. What do I care if he kills some old human? This crabbiness was immediately replaced by a stab of fear that he might do such an unnecessary, cruel gesture towards his own kind someday, if the drow mercenary wasn't around and wasn't on guard enough to stop him. Why do you do this? For every step forward, you take two steps back, my friend. Don't you want to triumph over this depression you are in?

Jarlaxle was sure it _was _a depression. The same kind of depression that afflicted thousands of drow in his home city. He feared the kind of loss of feeling and zest for one's own life that Artemis, and people like him, suffered for most of their lives. The human kind, he reasoned, had a moral center and motivation that, if not missing from drow consciousness, was deeply buried. Being untrue to this moral center could cause such melancholia and apathy that Jarlaxle witnessed in Entreri.

Maybe he only wanted to believe it, but the dark elven mercenary thought that secretly, Artemis blamed himself for every bad deed he'd ever done, and continued to do them as a punishment for himself that only drafted him into the circumstances under which he brought himself more pain, more punishment, more suffering. Are you sure? he asked himself. I let go of my own cycle of destruction long ago, and the key to the workings of a conscience is to never do anything which would rub it the wrong way. A conscience is like…a cat, he thought suddenly. Rub it the wrong way, and it bites. Or claws furniture.

He watched his friend contemplatively. His stomach tightened in uneasiness and hope. If only I could teach him the key to managing his conscience.

…Then he won't need me anymore, Jarlaxle thought, startled. I have to stop thinking. Too many unexpected thoughts in one day is damaging to one's confidence, and I need all I can get.

"I am needed," he murmured to himself, tensing defensively. "I am always needed." He didn't realize he had spoken out loud.

Until, that is, Artemis woke up and heard, through the fuzzy filter of half-consciousness. "Mm?" he said, trying to focus. If it was urgent, he needed to know.

"No, no, go back to sleep," Jarlaxle said.

"Mumbling," the assassin said, and before he could make himself clearer, he lost his grip and slipped back into his dream.

Blast it. At times like this, Jarlaxle wished he had need of the longer resting process that Artemis was currently in the grip of. His mind was too active for his liking.

And yet, he couldn't leave, because if the assassin ever woke up before daybreak, he would see his friend's absence as a gesture of betrayal. He never said so; one look was enough, when Jarlaxle sauntered through the door to give greetings to the newly awakened. He'd learned never to do that again.

But what is the point of watching you sleep? Jarlaxle thought. He peered at his friend more closely. You're resting uncomfortably, true, but grown men hardly need their business partners comforting them after a simple nightmare. He lay his chin in the palm of his hand.

He smoothed over our previous conversation, the elf realized. The things I said about his sexuality, and he effectively caused _me_ to drop it, when talking about it was my own idea. The drow mercenary experienced a flash of increased admiration for his partner, smiling down on him as he turned his head slightly towards Jarlaxle, furrowed brow smoothing out into a dazed expression.

Oh, how I wish you were awake right now, Jarlaxle thought, feeling a surge of childish selfishness and the need to be entertained. The conversations we would have! We really do have conversations about almost anything, the dark elf thought. The results are always illuminating. It isn't often that I get to say something that is truly on my mind or in my heart. Even if you do shun it and pretend to change the subject.

My goodness, attached, are we? he said to himself, amused. I haven't been so aroused since…He quickly put the memory out of his mind. It was a painful one. And not particularly one of his best moments.

And that is why you're never going to touch him, Jarlaxle decreed, looking at Artemis. Even a little? With effort, he held himself back. No. He would not appreciate that. Though he may be interested in men, you would never be his type. Jarlaxle sighed.

His only piece of fortune in the whole messy business was that Artemis could not read any of his thoughts. If the man could, he would have a lot more explaining to do before the assassin would trust him within arm's range again.

Oh, come now, you know nothing would come of it anyway. After all, attraction is not a science. I've felt attracted to torturers before. That doesn't mean I'd actually want to be in bed with them, Jarlaxle told himself. This is exactly the same. Another random attraction. Another random attraction.

In the end, he decided to take the chance of slipping away from the room for an hour or two anyway, reasoning that if he got back before daybreak, Entreri wouldn't be too vexed with him. He simply had to get out of there. It was beginning to feel like a stone box with no way out.


	2. Drinking Too Much

Jarlaxle ended up no further than the bar at the inn. He judged that this must be a well traveled town, for even at this hour in the morning the common room of the inn was half full, though it was cloaked in silence. He nodded approvingly.

This was the time of night frequented by people that knew the value of staying quiet. He wondered at the fact that Artemis always insisted on being asleep by the time this new crowd of people came out.

The scrawny serving wench taking her turn as bartender took his nod as an indication for another drink.

Ah well, that's not so bad, he thought, letting her take down another bottle of apricot brandy from the bottle-laden shelves.

She fixed it the same way as the last one, on the rocks.

The fact that he liked ice in it seemed to disgust the other patrons at the bar, and when they saw him having another, most of them drifted away to fill the empty tables instead of enduring his company.

That was alright, too. Yes, everything was alright, and he didn't care if the night ever ended.

At least, this was how he felt after one drink.

"Any of'er drow come through here?" Jarlaxle asked the bartender, leaning forward. He blinked and thought, This is unusual. I've never felt this way after one drink. Maybe three or four, maybe, but never one drink of apricot brandy.

"Sure," the scrawny, blonde thing said, shrugging. "Lotsa times. Mostly like yerself." She seemed remarkably blasé about it. Her dark blue eyes, shrewd as a rat's, seemed misplaced in that little body, fair-skinned and freckled, with her golden blonde curls piled on top of her head. She was smaller than some elves Jarlaxle had seen.

"I doubt that," Jarlaxle said, and grinned. He poked the one of the red feathers in his cap triumphantly. "_I_ have a purple hat!"

She smiled at him. "Mercenaries," she said. "Mostly poor folk, and down on their luck, as it were, what with so much…" she leaned forward, almost as if what she had to say was confidential. "Pre-dji-diss," she said, taking care to get the word right. "That's what means an unreasoning dislike o' some kinds."

"I know," Jarlaxle said, smiling at her tolerantly. Abruptly, he got up and slapped his hand on the bar counter. "How much?"

"You didn't finish your drink," she said, looking confused.

He'd forgotten about the second drink, somehow. If Entreri finds me like this, already awake and waiting for me, I'll be hung out the window by my earrings. Without thinking anything besides 'I have to get back to Artemis', he downed the whole drink in one gulp. "How much?" he repeated. Jarlaxle felt a minor earthquake ripple through the floor, which almost knocked him off his feet. It's lucky I'm so well prepared tonight, or someone could sneak up on me and kill me before I had a chance to say hello, he thought.

"Forty gold," the blonde said.

"What?" Jarlaxle lifted his eye patch with one hand and gave her a look of surprise with both eyes. "Why? That's the most expensive peach brandy I've ever heard of. Or was it apricot brandy?"

Her cunning blue eyes drilled into him, implying a smirk on her pale, innocent lips. "Ain't a peach or apricot brandy anyhow," she said.

That took a few moments for Jarlaxle to understand. He swayed unsteadily, glanced over his shoulder, and then flipped his eye patch down and squinted at the two glasses on the counter, trying to focus. "They're not?" She shook her head innocently. The drow stopped trying to clear the fuzz from his vision and looked away before he gave himself eye strain. "Oh." He perceived that some further response might be expected of him. "What are they?"

Her eyes lit up with amusement, but she was trying very hard to maintain her innocent expression. "Elverquisst."

Jarlaxle almost fell over in surprise. He swerved, regained his balance, and suspiciously spun around to examine the crowd of people at the tables. His right hand shook slightly out of fear. It's a good thing there aren't any elves around here tonight, he thought. They'd kill me if they saw a drow drinking their precious spirits!

He spun on his heel and faced the bartender again. "Don't go spreading this around," he said, leaning heavily on the counter with a hand down to steady himself. If I don't die, I'll be drunk for a week! He drew out three heavy 20-piece gold coins from his purse as quietly as he could and set them on the counter in front of her hand. An extra 20-piece to keep her silence, and possibly buy her services – it wasn't often he admired a serving wench's mind as much as her body. She was a dangerous one, pulling this on him. He grinned at her.

Jarlaxle walked away with as much dignity as he could muster, and almost reached the stairs before he stumbled over his own feet. Then he realized the blasphemy of it all. Drinking elverquisst with ice in a brandy glass. He made a face. Thank the gods for being understanding and not striking him down then and there. The drow felt his face grow hot. If Artemis learns about this, he'll be bothering me about it for the rest of his life. He unobtrusively levitated up the stairs. Under the circumstances, he thought, turning and looking at the narrow, steep stairway, it probably saved my life.

He concentrated on making his footfalls silent as he crept up the hall to their room. Having looked around and found no indication of anyone else about, he happily concluded that danger was past and pushed their door open, marching into the safety of –

Jarlaxle's foot caught on the carpet and sent him into a strangely graceful dive, rainbow cape fluttering behind him, until he hit the floor with a loud thump. The gust of wind dislodged his hat. It settled down in front of him with the wide brim resting on his nose. I think, mayhaps, that I have been caught.

He heard the worn springs of the bed creak, a footstep, then their door slamming angrily shut and being locked with a mechanical click of metal. He flinched at the sudden globe of light above him. "What…are you doing?" Artemis said, somewhere behind or beside him.

Jarlaxle thought about this. "Falling down," he said. Ridiculously, the first thing he did was reach out and squash his hat back onto his head. Then he lay there passively.

"You have already fallen," Artemis informed him, nudging him in the ribs with the toe of his boot.

"Really?" Jarlaxle said. "I didn't feel an impact. I'm still falling, falling, falling…" He made swimming motions with his arms. He wasn't really that dazed, but he was beginning to find entertainment in his situation, and if he could just get Artemis to laugh, he might not kill the dark elf for being drunk enough to fall flat on his face.

In the silence, he thought he felt Artemis grin. Then the assassin's hand was suddenly around his throat, yanking him to his feet. He found himself face to face with his companion. Jarlaxle waved his arms helplessly. "If you please, let go," he said. "I'm trying to regain my balance."

The assassin stared at him impassively, seeming displeased, but unclenched his hand from around Jarlaxle's collar.

The drow mercenary easily stood on his own two feet. He gave a deep bow to his rescuer, which ended with another dive to the floor.

Artemis made a small sound like a bitten-off chuckle. "You've found a new sport," he said. A mean glint was in his eyes. "Either that, or you're having an affair with the floor. I think I'll retreat and let you two lovebirds alone to whisper sweet nothings."

"How do you know they're empty promises?" Jarlaxle asked, pretending to be indignant. He tried to push himself up, but his arms were wobbling badly. "I don't care how they feel about you in this town," he said to the floor. "I'm not letting anyone walk all over you again!"

Once he got to his feet, he saw Artemis looking at him in disbelief. "That is…one of the worst…_jests_, I have ever heard you say." He used the word as if he doubted the things Jarlaxle just said qualified. He sniffed. "What _have_ you been drinking?" He added as an afterthought, "And for how long?"

"That, my friend, is a quedshun for a certain little serving wench," the drow said.

Artemis truly must have been in a bad mood, for he immediately said with a raise of his eyebrow, "'Qued-shun'. I am fairly familiar with the Drow language, but your meaning escapes me."

"Don't be cruel."

"Being cruel is my nature."

Jarlaxle said, "Or merely your _habit_. I doubt that you have a cruel bone in your body."

The assassin stiffened. "Whether or not it is a habit is none of your business."

Jarlaxle frowned at him, sensing that his conversation was getting out of control. Worse, if he didn't contest the man's claim right now, Entreri would assume that it was correct, and wouldn't allow Jarlaxle to interfere anymore. That was simply unacceptable. "Now wait just a minute – "

Artemis cut him off. "You. Are drunk."

"That doesn't make me stupid," Jarlaxle said. "You can't tell me that you were born making fun of poor, innocent drunkards and slitting throats. You didn't start stabbing people for candy and worked your way up as you got older."

"What you're saying is offensive, and I suggest you stop before I take advantage of your crippled state and usher you out of this world forever," Artemis said. He quietly drew his dagger. "_I _am going back to sleep."

"What were you thinking of this evening?" Jarlaxle almost blurted, but at the last moment he realized that that would tip the balance of Artemis' fight to control his temper, and held his tongue for fear of starting a serious argument. As it was, it could take days to adequately apologize for the transgressions he'd made.

Perhaps he would kill the serving wench after all.


	3. Too Little To Do

Artemis awoke to the sound of Jarlaxle moaning. He listened with his eyes shut, taking the time to remember the layout of his surroundings. The small inn room, brown carpet, white walls, the stiff bed where he was lying, the splintery wood desk by the window, and the chair, which Jarlaxle had moved to his side of the bed as a nightstand… He heard the dark elven mercenary moan again. It was a rich, melancholy sound.

The assassin sat up, combed his fingers through his dark, unkempt hair, and blinked his eyes against the gray daylight coming through the window. Jarlaxle had opened the shutters. Artemis glanced out the window for a moment. No movement, and the day was overcast.

Then he looked for Jarlaxle, and found him slumped in his chair, now in the middle of the room, his hat tipped down over his face. The feathers sagged sadly. "What's the matter?" Artemis asked.

Jarlaxle moved slightly, but stayed slumped. His arms hung limply at his sides. "Elverquisst," he said from under his hat.

"What?" the assassin said.

The dark elf sighed, his air of melancholy deepening. "I drank elverquisst."

Artemis grinned, and nearly laughed, suspecting some sort of joke. He had a vision of Jarlaxle looking at the bottles of liquor and flamboyantly announcing, 'I'll have the elverquisst!' "This is one experience," the man said, "that you won't add to your scrapbook of glorious adventures on the surface. How did it happen?"

"I was slipped elverquisst by some little shrew behind the bar," Jarlaxle said. He sounded hurt. "I thought it was apricot brandy."

Artemis laughed. He couldn't help it. He doubled over, slightly breathless, laughing harder than he had in over a decade, possibly more. The evidence of the eccentric elf's naivete - peculiar to the Drow race, Artemis found whenever he encountered them – had led his mercenary friend into the most ridiculous blunder he had ever seen.

Jarlaxle took off his hat and mopped his head with a handkerchief. "I'm glad that I had to die in order to get you to laugh," he said, at which point Artemis noticed that the elf was sweating profusely.

"It's a different color," the assassin said, straightening and giving his friend an incredulous look.

"I thought it was special apricot brandy."

This response brought more laughter from Entreri. He said, "There are little lights in it."

Jarlaxle pouted. "I didn't notice." At Artemis' incredulous look, he said, "I was distracted. I drank it all without really looking at it."

"You're lucky you weren't poisoned," Artemis said, frowning at him. "What possessed you to take a drink without first examining it to see if it had been tampered with? There are enemies of ours everywhere; you never know where they could turn up next."

"I heard that elverquisst has magic in it," Jarlaxle said, and moaned again.

"Yes," Artemis said.

"Celebratory."

"Yes," Artemis said. "The end of summer."

"Surface elf magic," Jarlaxle said. "I drank it. I don't think it likes me." His expression was pitiful. He mopped his bare head again. "I think it made me sick." He made a little whimpering groan. Artemis watched him pitilessly. "I think I need to lie in bed. Until I'm better, I don't want to go rushing off in search of profits."

"You're delirious," the assassin said, standing aside as Jarlaxle stumbled heavily past him and flopped down on the bed. The elf didn't move. "And you're costing us."

"Lighten up. The assignment can wait. If you want, you can locate the local authorities and tell them our findings. I'm sure that they would provide a lesser reward for the information." Jarlaxle shifted, shedding his vest and his shirt and tossing them on the floor. Then he kicked off his boots and wriggled under the covers. He pulled the blanket up to his chin. With his hat still on, he looked ridiculous. "Besides," the drow said, eyes brightening. "It's about time we had a vacation. Why don't we take the whole week off?"

Artemis flatly silenced him with a stare. "I don't take vacations."

"I think I'm going to be sick."

The assassin strode to the foot of the bed, picked up the chamber pot, and set it down by the side of the bed. "If that's your way of saying that you're going to throw up, do it in there," he said. He looked disgusted. "With our luck, you'll ruin this room to the point where we have to pay extra for them to afford to clean it up."

"Relax," Jarlaxle said. "You're going to run yourself into the ground. We had half a dozen meetings with death this week. _Relax_."

Artemis paced the room angrily. "I do not relax." Then he said, as if the thought just occurred to him, "Why do you never leave me alone? If you wish for a different partner, I would let you have one. If you wish for someone more like you, I suggest you find one. If I'm not refined enough to be in your esteemed company, I could travel by myself."

Is _this _what he's been thinking about? Jarlaxle thought. He found himself horrified. "When have I ever said such a thing?" he asked soothingly. "If you must know, I enjoy your company. I have said that often enough."

"But which times were you lying?"

"I was never lying," Jarlaxle said. He winced as his stomach experienced a painful twinge. "Now _please_, can we postpone the conversation until I am feeling travel-worthy enough to get out of bed?" he wiped the sweat from his face with his handkerchief. "I am sorry that I have displeased you in such a way, abbil."

Artemis glared at him, fists clenching and unclenching slowly as if trying to decide whether or not to believe him. "Why did you leave?" he asked. "Why did you go down to that disease-ridden excuse for a bar in the first place?"

The drow mercenary found himself giving pause. Explaining why would be explaining why he couldn't stand to stay in the same room with him while he was sleeping; would be somehow explaining how he'd driven himself crazy with contemplation. "The night makes me restless," he said simply. "As it does you."

The assassin froze. "You are continually bringing the subject back to me."

"You're interesting."

"I'm not a guinea pig."

Jarlaxle thought they had best get this certain argument over with. He showed signs of making this a long lasting feud, his unconfident manner in their friendship making his suspicious nature flare up again and again. "Then what are you?" the drow asked. He projected enough patience to calm his partner.

Artemis colored, less agitated, but frustrated with his inability to express himself. "I am not your plaything – _not_ your experiment –" He glared again. "And not your comic relief!"

"Alright," Jarlaxle said. This display of Artemis sticking up for himself interested him. He knew it was rare that Artemis Entreri resorted to words instead of knives to let someone else know his displeasure towards them. He thought it would be good for the assassin. "But what are you?" His gaze on Artemis was perceptive. He forgot that he was feeling sick.

The assassin struggled. All that was coming to mind was things he would like to tell Jarlaxle never to do again. What was that feeling of anger called – it had a specific name. Artemis tried to remember through the haze of emotions he normally kept strictly off limits.

Most of the time, he told himself that he didn't have emotions. It made dealing with them easier. They were nothing but intruders, making his life difficult.

What was that word? And _why_ did Jarlaxle make him angrier than he'd been in a long time? He felt a stab of cold. _Betrayal_. The word was betrayal. "I am your partner." The look on Artemis' face was of surprise. He hadn't known those words were going to come out of his mouth.

Jarlaxle's expression warmed into a gentle smile. "Then treat yourself that way," he said. "You have been largely disgracing _yourself_. Treat yourself well, my friend. You deserve it. After all, you are one of the few survivors from a large city of unsuccessful beggars. You should be proud of yourself. You are _worth_ a vacation, after all you've been through." He propped himself up on an elbow. "Think of it this way: if I, your partner, am not working, what standard are you holding yourself to that you must keep going without my contribution?"

The man's shoulders sagged. He let out a long breath that was almost a sigh. "There will be other jobs," he said.

Jarlaxle nodded.

"I will inform the authorities of what we know of the Silk Thread Murderer."

Jarlaxle nodded again.

Artemis found the resident guards fairly easily. He'd been walking through the streets just last evening, after all, and he remembered where to find them. They resided in a square, flat-roofed building of ugly gray-brown stones at one corner of the town; not the best arrangement, Artemis thought.

Inside he found that they must also be hunters, for there was a bearskin rug inside the door, and several mounted heads of animals. The door opened into a lounge-like area with a fireplace, ringed with sofas and chairs and small tables.

There was a tall, muscular man in armor in one of the chairs, smoking a pipe, and they exchanged words. He said they called themselves "The Aberiss Guard", by which Artemis inferred that the sorry little rows of streets passing for a town was named Aberiss. They bartered. It wasn't particularly exciting. However, to his advantage, the Guard was fair. In exchange for the information, he received a bag of four hundred gold coins. That was half the bounty on the head of the killer he and Jarlaxle had been tracking.

He concluded his business without the usual frills of pleasantries Jarlaxle piled on top of every occasion, took the gold, and went back to the inn.

"Half," he said, dumping the bag of coins on the bed.

Jarlaxle, who had his eyes closed and had appeared to be resting, sat up and opened his eyes. "You mean half of the reward?"

Artemis gave a slight nod.

"Excellent!" The drow grinned, pleased. "I must say, I didn't expect the authorities of this small town to be so generous. I hope you thanked him adequately."

"I left without killing him," Artemis said. "Most people who know of me would say that this is showing gratitude enough." He was in a better humor. He smiled and sat on the foot of the bed. "So, are you feeling up to breakfast?"

"Your cruelty knows no bounds," Jarlaxle said, wilting back into a resting position. "I don't think I'll be able to eat for a month."

"Not even shellfish?"

The drow swallowed and looked sickly. "Two months."

Artemis got up and said, as close to cheerful as he ever came, "Then it will cost less to travel with you." He left the room and walked downstairs, ravenous.

The assassin had a fairly simple way of ordering food. He sat down at a table, whether it was a tavern, an inn, or merely a restaurant, and then he glared at the staff until someone asked him what he wanted to order. Jarlaxle, had he been there, would have disapproved heartily, but because he wasn't – an absence Artemis felt with more than a little bit of glee – the assassin had free reign.

So he proceeded with the plan. He sat down at an empty table near the stairs, looked around impassively until he picked out one of the drably clad serving maids, and glared at her. She was serving beer to a couple of bearded men in brown cloaks and didn't notice, until she casually turned to look over her shoulder, a dimple in her plump cheek. Upon meeting his gaze, she looked a little disconcerted, but then quickly enough sauntered over, an empty tray in one hand.

"What can I do for you?" she asked. Her voice was alright, too. If Jarlaxle had been here alongside him, he no doubt would have made some admiring remark and offered his services to her. Artemis, at best, was indifferent.

"I'll have whatever you serve that is edible," Artemis said.

She laughed. "That would be a lot of things, _sir_." She smiled at him teasingly, as though she found him… Humorous, or something. He blinked. He wasn't joking. "We have a platter of griddle cakes, eggs, and sausage, fried bread with fish and greens, lentil soup, pastries and muffins, steak with fried potatoes, lamb chops…" She leaned forward, exposing her cleavage without seeming to notice. "This is our best season," she said. "And we have a very good cook."

He hated it when that happened. When he found a low scale inn, he expected it to have one or two dishes, and the rest to be positively poisonous. He didn't want to have to make decisions. Especially not when he was hungry enough to eat _anything_ that resembled food. "Cakes, eggs, and sausage," he sighed, randomly picking the first thing she'd said. He never let it be said he didn't have a system.

"Would you like a beer with that?" she asked.

"No."

"Very well then. Thank you sir." Then she did her lovely walk in the opposite direction. He was glad that he hadn't made the mistake of trying to proposition _her _the other night. She gave off somehow an air of wholesomeness.

Sure enough, she had cared enough to judge the fact that he was extremely hungry and he had his food in five minutes flat. It still sizzled and steamed. He had to admit it looked good.

Artemis knew rationally he was by himself, but at the same time, he couldn't shake the feeling that Jarlaxle would know if he didn't show an appropriate amount of appreciation. He reluctantly looked up from his plate. "Thank you." He handed her two silver pieces, and dug into his food in a way he hoped she would interpret as 'go away'. He heard her retreating footsteps.

The damned drow is probably spying on me anyway, Artemis thought. He has nothing else whatsoever to entertain him now that he's decided to be bedridden. He resisted the urge to make a rude gesture at the stairs.

Jarlaxle was indeed bored.

He felt sick, but he wasn't tired, and so his only purpose in being in bed was to make himself more comfortable. That, and he was as cold as if he'd been walking through a mountain pass in nothing but his underwear.

He wondered in passing how Artemis would feel if he knew that he was making their joint bed for the week a soggy mess by sweating in it. "I also wonder if I have a cure," he said out loud. He searched his belt with one hand and tried to think. Nothing came to mind. Besides, he suspected he'd had a reaction to surface elf magic, not alcohol, which he had already consumed and, by now, filtered out of his system.

"Perhaps I can persuade a maid to change our sheets," he said.

"Why do we need to do that?" Artemis said, walking through the door.

Jarlaxle smiled sheepishly. "Because I am sweating as much as if we were fighting our way through a rainforest."

"And you're sure that there's no potions that could help," Artemis said, but it sounded almost like a question.

"Have you heard the phrase, 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'? Very interesting, that idea," the drow said, looking thoughtful.

"I think it's a load of crap," Artemis said. "If it doesn't kill you, it cripples you for life."

Jarlaxle started to laugh, then clutched his midsection and said, "Not at a time like this. My stomach. Save your jokes for when I'm not in danger of regurgitating my last meal."

"You and the bar girl," Artemis said. "Today, this morning alone has been full of people who think I am joking."

"Come, come," Jarlaxle said, "you must admit that you are entertaining. It is a good quality!"

"I don't have it," Artemis said, his expression a flat denial.

"As you wish," the dark elf said, closing his eyes. He rested his head against the pillow. "What are you going to do while I am in bed fighting off the malevolent energy of ceremonial liquor?"

Artemis shrugged, then noted that Jarlaxle wouldn't be able to see that response. "I don't know."

Again, things were back to normal. He didn't know what to make of that. They'd settled their arguments with a skill and ease that only the drow mercenary seemed to possess, and were back to conversing as if nothing had happened. In a way, to someone who thrived on confrontation, that was frustrating. It felt like a setback. Yet he wasn't angry enough to do anything about it. He was conscious of the fact that it was just Jarlaxle's way. After all, the man had kept together a group of volatile drow mercenaries and still had his skin at the end of the day. Negotiating with a grumpy human was probably a form of relaxation to him.

Entreri sat down on the edge of the bed. Jarlaxle had moved the bag of coins to somewhere else, but he didn't worry about it. The drow knew not to cheat him. They'd never had any problems of that sort in their partnership, nor did he expect any. He came back to his conclusion earlier that morning. For whatever reason, the elf had built Artemis' trust in him. He didn't have to; surely not. He was powerful enough, and clever enough, to go about their partnership different ways and still get what he wanted. The long and short of it was the same as the town guard offering him four hundred gold pieces. He didn't have to be fair; he was.

"You're giving me bad dreams," he said, and smiled awkwardly, only half-joking.

"Is this another attack on my fashion sense?" Jarlaxle asked without opening his eyes.

"No."

There was silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable. The only sound, really, was the two of them breathing, and muted music from below as some bard started up a song in the common room. "What kind of bad dreams?"

Artemis hesitated. "Drivel. No doubt borne of spending too much time with you."

"I see."

Artemis doubted that he really did, or else he would have sounded far more worried. He couldn't believe what he was about to say. "I…want you to know that – I trust you." He would sooner have pulled out one of his molars, but something inside of him was demanding these words. However, this unnamed impulse did not prevent him from adding his own stricture. "And if you betray my trust in any way, I am going to carve you up like a steak," he said.

Jarlaxle was smiling broadly. "That's good to know," he said. Artemis couldn't tell if he meant the first part or the second part.


	4. Too Much To Say

A maid did indeed come and change their sheets once Artemis requested it of the innkeeper, resentfully bearing Jarlaxle's offering of an extra twelve coppers for a maid to do it once a day for the next five days. How the drow calculated those things Artemis didn't know, but he seemed to have a good eye, because the innkeeper's reaction proved it was an appropriate price.

And, unfortunately, though Jarlaxle helpfully climbed out of bed, he didn't put his clothes on. Sometime between that morning, and this evening, he had apparently stripped completely.

The maid had no complaints.

Artemis sighed. Was everyone around him oversexed?

And yet for some reason, his friend was still wearing his purple hat.

The assassin snatched it off his head while Jarlaxle was busy exchanging smiles with the maid, who kept looking up from her work, pulling off the sheets and wrestling with the mattress in order to put on new ones.

"Congratulations. Now the picture is complete," Artemis said. "You are completely naked."

Jarlaxle playfully flicked the hoop earrings he wore. "Not completely," he said. "Nor have I removed my rings." He held up an index finger. "And I warn you, should you foolishly attempt to remove them, in foolish jest or no, I will hurt you."

Artemis thought the drow had probably disrobed either when he had had lunch, or when he had decided to bathe. He had left, both times, leaving Jarlaxle to himself, mournfully turning the pages of a book he'd bought as a joke almost three months ago that was full of nothing but bad dialogue and sex.

The bath was something Artemis needed. It consisted of a narrow, closet-like room in which there was a cold water tap, a stove and kettle, and a narrow tub. He'd raised an eyebrow. Do-it-yourself. Then he'd gotten down to business. The good thing about the stiflingly small space was that his weapons were never out of arms reach, and he didn't have to worry about others sneaking up on him. That was one of his main bathing phobias, to the point where he'd almost killed Jarlaxle when the drow had decided to do that for a joke.

And when he came back, he found this spectacle.

"Enjoying yourself?" Artemis asked.

"Are you?" the drow mercenary asked in response, grinning.

The maid left with the dirty sheets.

"Not particularly," Artemis said. He took a razor out of his bag, rubbed his face with lotion, and began to shave. He periodically wiped off the razor blade with a soft cloth. Jarlaxle didn't know how he knew what he was doing without a mirror. "It's been a day that has almost bored me beyond belief. If there is a second day of this in store for me, I don't think I could stand to take a vacation much longer."

"Workaholic," Jarlaxle said. He was still a little pale, and still sweating, but the assassin judged that he must be feeling better. He wasn't wincing in pain any longer, and wasn't moving his head gingerly, as though it were full of wet sand. At the most, he'd probably had a slight case of poisoning.

Of course, Artemis hadn't really expected a drink to do Jarlaxle in. Elves drank it and survived every day. In spite of the fact that Jarlaxle was most surface elves' definition of pure evil, he wasn't _that _bad. And elverquisst was not used like insecticide, either. So, he greeted the drow back into the world of not almost dying. "You smell."

Jarlaxle gave him a wry look. "Do I."

"Yes."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Take a bath."

"Fair enough," Jarlaxle said, donning his clothing. It was strewn around various parts of the room. "That's the least I could do for you, since there is only one bed."

"I'm glad you grasp the situation."

Jarlaxle, unlike the assassin, didn't care who walked in on him during bathing. Once he found the room, he spent as much time as he could after washing off luxuriating in a steaming pool of water that could probably scald the skin off him. "Ah, to be warm." Now, the next time I see that serving wench…

When he returned to the room, he felt much better. He was able to take deep breaths again without throwing up, and miraculously, he had stopped that disgusting, abnormal sweating. He felt like a new man.

Artemis had already checked the traps, repositioned some of them, and gone to sleep. Jarlaxle noticed that he still had deep rings of darkened flesh under his eyes. Why didn't you get more sleep last night? The drow mercenary surveyed him, wondering what to do with him.

He had already as much as admitted that he was going to find away around taking a vacation. In spite of the fact that Jarlaxle knew on no uncertain terms that that was exactly what his friend needed; an extended period of rest. The man was thinner than usual, his sharp cheekbones more sharp, and the lines on his face more pronounced. Being clean shaven except for his goatee emphasized how gaunt he'd become. He also needed a haircut.

Jarlaxle shook his head, trying to dispel his preoccupation with Artemis' health, and also readied himself for bed. He wasn't really that tired, but he wasn't completely well. If he could get a better reverie than last night, he should try.

He pulled over the chair and set his hat on it, which had previously been lying on the floor where Artemis tossed it. Then he removed his vest, cape, and boots. He slid underneath the covers, naked from the waist up.

On a sudden thought, he also removed his hoop earrings and stuffed them into a pocket on his belt. The assassin had accidentally tugged on them before when they'd been resting, and it had hurt more than Jarlaxle had cared to point out.

The most comfortable position the elf could manage was to lie on his side, facing Artemis' back, partially curled up. It took over an hour, but finally, he slipped into an irritable reverie.

He woke up breathing heavily and shaking. His stomach was churning and his eyes were burning. For a moment, he was too consumed in his dream to notice that he had a line of four bloody scratches on his left arm.

Then he recoiled and silently jumped to his feet, out of the bed, wildly scanning the room.

Some intruder had –

Jarlaxle's eyes snapped to something he'd seen at a glance, then he turned around and stared, momentarily at a loss. His blood and skin was under Artemis' nails. He clapped a hand to his wounds. "That _hurts_," he said.

When Artemis didn't respond, he noticed that the assassin's sudden movement had been a coincidence, and that he was still asleep.

Jarlaxle shook him awake.

Artemis squinted at him through the darkness. "What – what are you –"

Jarlaxle sat on the bed and glared, preparing in advance to harass Artemis into submission. "You are going to tell me about these nightmares you've been having. Right now." He held out his bloody forearm.

Artemis stared intoJarlaxle's eyes and swallowed hard. "I didn't do that," he said. He looked down at his hand. His hand began to shake. "I mean." He swallowed again. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Then what happened?" Jarlaxle asked with an intense stare. He wouldn't rest until he knew what was happening inside Artemis' head. If something could make him do this, then it was something the drow mercenary needed to know.

"I was dreaming," Artemis said. His voice was harsh with fear. "I was – it was dark. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't mean to attack you."

"I _know_ that," Jarlaxle said, looking annoyed. "But I know that with you humans, dreams often don't go away unless you discuss them, so I am ordering you to do that for the sake of my skin."

"You weren't you," Artemis said, his eyes wide, dark with fear so strong that Jarlaxle was beginning to feel his skin prickle. "You were someone else."

The elf didn't know what to say to that, so he said, "Well, I'm _me_ now."

"It might have been Him," Artemis said. "Or it could have been someone else." By Him, Jarlaxle understood that he meant Drizzt. Which marginally made sense, since they were both drow. The assassin's voice dropped to a whisper, and he averted his eyes, choosing to look at the comforter rather than Jarlaxle. "It could have been someone else."

The drow mercenary felt awkward. It wasn't like him to intrude upon something so personal, but in this case, he had a personal interest in making sure that Artemis was never tempted by dream-inspired fear to scratch off his skin. "He is dead, and to my knowledge, He has not bothered you since, by dream or otherwise, so perhaps this mysterious person was someone else."

Artemis made a noise that almost sounded like a sob. "When the dream starts, I think it's you."

"So you don't do anything."

"He's following me."

"And you let him."

The assassin clenched his jaw, shutting his eyes tightly. This moment passed, and he opened his eyes again. "I wasn't expecting an attack." His voice was dull. "At the end of the alley. My weapons were gone."

"You fear death," Jarlaxle said, surprised and shaken at this look into his friend's soul.

"I fear you."

The drow suddenly felt emptiness replace what he'd been feeling.

"I fear _you_," Artemis cried, clasping his hands on Jarlaxle's shoulders. He leaned forward into the stunned drow. "I fear you because I cannot find anything wrong with you!" His breathing was punctuated by shaking sobs.

"Many fear my perfection," Jarlaxle said, his heart racing in desperation, trying to lighten the mood. He also more than anything wanted Artemis to let go. Thank goodness he's not actually crying, the drow thought. I'd fear he'd cracked.

"You don't try to intimidate me. You don't try to cheat me. You don't try to kill me. You don't really even take advantage of me, despite your petty games! I don't know what's wrong with you!"

Jarlaxle couldn't help feeling slightly insulted. "There has to be something wrong with me?"

Artemis' expression was harsh. "You're associating with _me_, aren't you?"

Oh, I see what it is now. Jarlaxle narrowed his eyes at the man. Now that he understands that I am his friend, he has to find some reason that I would want to be a friend to him, namely something I could gain by getting him to let me in past his emotional barriers. He's trying to find a reason to reject me so that he can feel safe. Having a friend means having a person to betray you. Well, that's awfully sad, isn't it. "There is nothing wrong with you," Jarlaxle said.

Artemis let out a quiet, mirthless laugh. "I see. So that's what's wrong with you. You're a chronic liar."

"Did you know, in many human cultures, calling another person a liar initiates a duel to the death?" Jarlaxle said. He spoke softly, but his tone was sharp. "I should think, my _friend_, that you would be a little more careful with your words. They force me to try to think of new ways to defend my honor from you."

"Then why do you say these, these – " Artemis was temporarily speechless. "There was not a cruel bone in my body; doing good deeds makes me feel better; there is nothing wrong with me. What could possibly motivate you to say such things about me? _Friendship_?"

"_Yes_," Jarlaxle said. "You finally understand." I can't believe it took this long to teach him that what friends say to each other is defined by kindness rather than cruelty. Has he really been so friendless for his entire life? I thought that was an impossibility in a world such as this. His world is full of so many gentle things. How can he fail to find a friend? How could he have ended up in the Underdark without ever leaving home? He patted Artemis' shoulder. "I am your friend."

He did what he had never dared to do. He had seen countless others exchange the gesture since he'd come to the surface, but he'd never seen someone else exchange it with Artemis Entreri. Jarlaxle hugged him.

Jarlaxle gave his friend a squeeze, and then let him go.

He couldn't tell what Artemis' expression was. For once, his friend's face had drained of everything, even the cold impassiveness he displayed when he withdrew from others. He looked…empty. Not angry, almost as Jarlaxle would have expected. "Artemis?" he said.

The man didn't answer. He just kept looking at Jarlaxle. Jarlaxle looked at him. The man who spoke hardly seemed like the same person. Artemis' voice was mellower, much less like a pair of swords grinding against each other. "No one has called me friend since I was four years old."

Jarlaxle knew that he had to treat this admission with respect. "That is a long time," he said.

Artemis nodded, somewhat hesitantly. "For me, friendship was a concept that ended in early childhood," he said.

Jarlaxle pricked up his ears. Did he detect…regret? He was seeing a side of Entreri he'd never dreamed to be able to see. He'd always known there was another person underneath Artemis' shell, but he never thought he'd ever be able to see his friend's transformation. He'd always assumed that they would both die first, or that Artemis would simply refuse his help and continue along his path of being a self-sufficient assassin.

Jarlaxle had spent many nights up contemplating his friend, taking his insights for the day and happily piecing them into the puzzle he'd constructed of his partner, trying to fill the rest in himself to make a coherent whole. It had been his pet project. It provided endless hours of entertainment, late into the night while Artemis slept. The drow had fantasized about what interesting secrets his friend held.

And now, he saw the person he'd been trying to reconstruct from forensics in front of his very eyes. He held his breath, so badly did he not want this moment to end.

But Artemis, of course, had other ideas. His eyelids were drooping. As iftheir conversationhad been all that was keeping him awake, he sank back down to their hard, uncomfortable bed and closed his eyes. "Now let me get some sleep," he said. Jarlaxle thought he almost heard a 'please' in there somewhere.

Though with regret, Jarlaxle couldn't find it in himself to refuse this person. Artemis was simply too valuable to him. "Of course, my friend. I shall stay and watch the both of us."

Artemis was asleep almost before Jarlaxle finished saying those words.


	5. Too Many Memories

The drow mercenary let him sleep in peace, having learned from a very early experience. It was one of the first times that Artemis had not outright refused to sleep in the same bed as Jarlaxle, which he usually had, by acidly pointing out that he didn't know what went on in the drow's reveries. Unfortunately, the assassin had a good point, but he didn't know that.

Jarlaxle had been driven out of his side of the bed. It had started innocently enough. First, Artemis had rolled over. Then, he had rolled back the other way. The elf was beginning to find amusement in his bed acrobatics. So, he waited for a particularly peaceful moment and poked Artemis in the shoulder. Jarlaxle spent the next twenty minutes slowly prying himself out of Artemis' stranglehold, at which point he concluded that his assassin friend must be dreaming of a bar fight. He was forced to take off his hat in order to wiggle out from under Artemis' arm around his neck. He snatched his hat back at the last second before Artemis turned over.

Jarlaxle privately admitted that the whole thing had been his own fault.

Besides, the drow mercenary was no longer interested in thinking up petty torments in order to learn more about his business partner. He had enough enlightenment for one night.

He gingerly touched the scratches on his arm. Yes, they still hurt. They'd stopped bleeding, but pesky welts had appeared on the scene of the crime, making his arm tender. Jarlaxle sighed, relaxed his head against the pillow, and amused himself with ideas about how to spend the rest of his self-proclaimed vacation. Perhaps he would…

The next thing he knew, he was in a reverie.

He could tell, because when he was in reverie, the edges of his vision were ever so slightly smeared, like the lens of a dirty telescope. His reveries were also steeped in the maddening feeling that everything had happened before. Humans called it déjà vu. He thought in his case it was more like broken memories.

Jarlaxle sat up. He was still in bed. He felt the mattress. Not the bed he was dreaming in, then, but a different bed. One filled with goose down feathers. Softer, and the air was perfumed. He sniffed. Lilac and roses. This should have been comforting, but it wasn't. Instead, he felt bile at the back of his throat and a strong sense of foreboding.

Well, I'm inside my head, he thought, so I would know.

All of a sudden, a beautiful half-elven maid dressed only in a chemise jumped into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck. Jarlaxle grinned, detached. Ah. It was _this _memory. "Your father had better not find out," he said, not because it was what he was thinking, but because he had said it then, so he was merely obligated to repeat it now.

"I won't tell him," she said, a giggle in her beautiful voice. She took off his hat and planted a kiss on his bald head. Chemiya had been fascinated with his bald head. It had been a little embarrassing.

"Give me that back!" he said, leaning into her and reaching for it.

She knew this game, so she shook her head, flipping her champagne blonde hair in his face and holding it away from him as far as she could reach.

Jarlaxle rolled over, pinning her to the bed, and kissed her on the lips. He took back his hat.

It had started out innocently enough. He'd rescued her from a yeti. But she wanted to express her…gratitude. On the way back to her father's cottage in the mountains, she'd bantered with him, tempted him, and teased him. By the time they got her home, he hadn't cared that her father would stick a sword through his ribs if he found out what he was doing to the man's daughter.

_It had started out innocently enough…_That phrase suddenly sent a jolt of fear through him.

Jarlaxle got up, trying to disengage himself from her. "Artemis," he said. Now it was wrong, it was all going wrong, this wasn't his memory anymore.

"That other man?" Chemiya said, wrinkling her nose. "He scared me."

"No, no," Jarlaxle said. Artemis' life was being threatened. "He's not really that –" He looked around frantically. "I have to go!" With difficulty, he shoved his voice back into a semblance of calm. "I am sorry, but you must let me go. Don't go out of this room. Stay here."

"I thought you said he was an assassin," she said, pouting. "He should be able to take care of himself." She had an unbreakable grip on his arm. She wasn't letting go.

He was almost too frightened to think. "Chemiya, let me go!"

A sword leapt into his free hand, and he swung it at her. "What are you going to do?" she exclaimed. "Kill me?"

Jarlaxle wasn't even looking at her. The reflection of the blade flashed in his eyes as he began to hack his arm off. Castoff from the sword sprayed on himself and the beautiful girl. The blood ran softly down his arm and chest, pooling on the comforter. In two or three hacks, he reached bone. With only the slightest hesitation, he cocked back his arm and gave the bone a chop with all his strength. The blade went through. Blood was everywhere.

The pain from his arm consumed him, clouding his vision.

"I thought you said he wasn't going to do this!" Artemis yelled. They were both running through the forest as fast as they could.

Jarlaxle turned to look at his friend, enduring the painful slap of a branch. He smiled sheepishly. "Perhaps I hit a sour note." In one hand he still clutched the wooden flute that he'd attained in order to charm the creature that was now after them.

"You said you could play that thing!"

"Everyone gets nervous," Jarlaxle said. He glanced behind them. The monstrous thing was gaining.

Artemis skidded to a stop, digging his heel into the soft earth, changed direction, and ran towards the beast. "Then I'll have to kill it!"

"What are you doing?" Jarlaxle shouted, dismayed. "That thing has an exoskeleton!" He flailed his arms, nearly tripping in his sudden stop, and tried to catch up with the assassin. He dived through the air using his levitation and landed on the beast's back. It almost looked like an angry combination between a dragon and a turtle. The drow flung a fireball spell at it, knowing it would do no good, but he tried to convince Artemis of that. "It's impervious to magic!" His fireball made a scorched mark on the thing's ugly green shell.

Artemis was clinging to the side of the hulking beast, using the spikes on its back in order to hang on. "Then I'll find a way!" he snarled.

"Why am I here?" Jarlaxle said, blinking. He watched Artemis stab the monster repeatedly, looking for a soft spot. The assassin couldn't stab it in the eye without getting his arm bitten off. "I don't understand."

"What are you doing?" Artemis roared. "Your soliloquy will get me killed!"

"This is just a dream," Jarlaxle explained. "I can do whatever I want."

"What?" Artemis said. He almost lost his grip on the creature's spike, stunned. It took advantage of his shock to buck alarmingly, trying to impale the assassin on his back. Artemis did a flip through the air.

Jarlaxle caught his arm as he came down, keeping him from sliding off the dome of the monster's back. "We're destined to win anyway." He blew a low note, then a high note on the wooden flute.

The beast stopped bucking, stomped its foot, and grunted.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" Artemis snarled, holding his dagger to Jarlaxle's neck.

"I just had to find the right two notes. I just realized I'd tried all the other combinations, so there was only one combination left," Jarlaxle shrugged. He smiled and tossed his head, making the plumes on his wide-brimmed hat bounce. "Besides," he said, looking at Artemis with amusement, "I remembered which notes worked in real life." He laughed. "Shall we be off to town?" He blew the same two notes. The beast began a flat-footed march towards the town.

He glanced at the assassin affectionately. This was one of Jarlaxle's fondest memories. But suddenly, the smile on his face faded as a small amount of sadness crept in.

He turned around, finding a row of three large glass windows with rain pounding against them. Black clouds roiled against the sky. Jarlaxle turned back, and saw his friend on a bed, looking pale. He took a step forward.

"I'm fine," Artemis said. He tried to sit up, winced, and lay on his back again in a stiff position.

"Why do you continually lie about your health?" Jarlaxle said. His voice was sharp and worn thin from tension. "It is not for some audience of people who might want you killed. There are two people in the room. There is you, and there is me. And I can see that you are _not_ 'fine'."

"I'm telling you in advance," Artemis said. "I am going to be fine." He had a row of stitches across his bare waist. "The only reason I do not get up right now is that the cleric assured me that all my stitches would rip out at the slightest exertion."

"That, and you're in pain," Jarlaxle snapped.

The assassin's expression turned impassive. "I am not in pain," he said. "I have been through far worse than something that required a few stitches."

"Seventeen," Jarlaxle said. "To be precise, I watched her sewing up your side, and there are seventeen stitches."

"Six, or seventeen," Artemis said. "It doesn't matter." He gripped his dagger tightly enough to make his hand tremble. "And when I am well, I will kill him."

"You're impossible," Jarlaxle snapped. That wasn't part of the memory. "Every time you get injured, you insist that it's only a flesh wound."

"The only thing that hurts is my pride," Artemis said. "And I refuse to grind salt into that wound by admitting that the pain is enough to keep me in bed instead out there, tracking him down and preparing to tan his hide."

"And what about me?"

Artemis gave him a cold look. "What _about_ you?"

Jarlaxle spun and strode away angrily. "I hate this!" he said. "Stop this – this charade, right now!"

He walked through the wall of the room and into another room, that which he hardly recognized as the one where they were staying right now, muttering to himself. "Why must my sleep be disturbed in this way?"

Then he stopped, and his eyes widened, seeing Artemis asleep in the bed, a tangled forelock draped across his face and tickling the bridge of his nose. His arm was partially tangled in the covers, but his expression was peaceful. Jarlaxle approached silently, pensively trying to avoid wakening him.

"Have you been here all this time, witnessing my journey through the scenes of our past?" Jarlaxle asked softly, sitting down on the bed and leaning towards him. Somehow, it touched something in his chest to have ended up back here, two nights ago when he'd followed Artemis through the streets with the sun setting overhead.

He almost expected to see himself sitting on a chair in the corner, lost in contemplation. But that was one thing that never happened in his reverie. No matter what else occurred, he never met himself.

Jarlaxle didn't feel any need to cover his emotions. After all, he was in the safety of his own private world. He reached over and stroked Artemis' face. It felt real. He could feel the little unshaven bristles under his fingertips, and his rough, weathered skin. The drow smiled slightly. It felt just as he imagined it would feel. That was why he could feel it at all. He leaned in and touched his lips to the assassin's. Entreri's facial hair felt like steel wool against his chin and upper lip, but Artemis' lips were firm and warm, inexplicably smooth.

Jarlaxle kissed him again. Ah, well, that's dreams for you, he thought. He closed his eyes. Always exaggerating the reality.

He flickered open his eyes at the cold, sticky wetness seeping through his shirt from Artemis' chest. Jarlaxle scrambled away, picking at his shirt and pulling it up where he could see it for closer inspection. His eyes snapped to Artemis, horrified. The man's chest was covered in a huge bloodstain.

Jarlaxle jolted into wakefulness and stared at the ceiling, taking in the sensation on his bald head against the smooth fabric of the pillow, and the comforter against his bare chest. He knew he was awake because the corners of his vision were sharp.

Now that was not nice, he admonished his subconscious. You're getting out of control. I don't need you to remind me that advancing on Entreri would kill us both. I was having fun.

Artemis was still asleep beside him. Jarlaxle looked at him, then thought, then couldn't resist. He felt around for his companion's wrist and took the assassin's pulse.

He sighed. Yes, of course, still alive. He put Artemis' wrist down. Sorry, my friend. That was completely unnecessary.

Except that it served to remind him that his friend's condition would remain such only as long as Jarlaxle behaved himself.

Now what was he thinking about before he began his reverie? The drow grinned. Oh yes. Four beautiful girls, a bottle of champagne, and a whole roasted chicken with stuffing. Not for himself, for Artemis. Truth be told, he'd rather have raw fish. Even humans understood that such a thing was a delicacy. Provided, of course, that it was prepared properly.


	6. Emotions Running Too High

Artemis awoke to a knock at the door. He jumped out of bed, and opened it, knife in hand.

It was a wrinkled old woman with her hair stuffed underneath a bonnet, squinting at him. She reminded him of a rotten potato. She wore a white maid's dress, and had a significant hunch back. He was able to take in all of this before she said in a frail little voice, "Laundry, my lord?"

Artemis was instantly reminded by the request that he and Jarlaxle combined had almost a month's worth of dirty, torn, and sweat-stained clothing from the past week alone. He returned to the door with a large bundle of shirts, pants, and… under-clothing, dropped it into the cart she had beside her, and warned her, "Take care of those silk shirts, or I'm going to slit your throat." He dug into his purse and gave her a handful of copper coins.

That was the least he could do to protect Jarlaxle's precious clothing.

"Yes, my lord," she said. She feebly pushed her cart down the hall.

Jarlaxle left recently, Artemis thought, feeling the elf's side of the bed. It was still warm.

He glanced out the window, again opened by Jarlaxle when the elf had gotten up, and found it to be a sunny day.

He was in an exceptionally good mood. He frowned out the window, somewhat confused. He was actually happy.

When he walked downstairs, ready for breakfast, he found Jarlaxle already there conversing with a barmaid. "Cured, I see," Artemis said, grinning, "but not curbed."

Jarlaxle sniffed. "Certainly not. I shall continue my ravishing ways until my teeth fall out." He gave a charming look to the maid.

"If you live that long," Artemis said, but for once, he wasn't making a threat. In fact, this morning, he was even willing to admit that the woman Jarlaxle had targeted was actually quite good-looking.

Jarlaxle tipped his hat to the woman and sat down at a table. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head, keeping his balance by slipping one foot under the rim of the table. "So what will you be having this morning?" the elf asked. "I have already decided upon lamb chops."

"Lamb chops?" Artemis said, making a face. He mostly did so in order to tease his friend. "I'll have a steak. Throw in greens, if you have any," he said, leaning back in his own chair. Contentment was pumping through his veins in such strong waves that he didn't even question his own frame of mind.

Jarlaxle wanted to, but he was afraid he'd ruin it. "Beautiful day, isn't it? The storm cleared up while we were asleep," he said. And I'll bet that's what reminded me of his injury, and his convalescence at the mansion of the reclusive lord halfway up the mountain. The rain pounding on the roof of the inn and hailstones banging at the windows.

"Depends on what you call a beautiful day," Artemis said, grinning. "Your 'beautiful day' has probably disappointed a lot of people who like rain."

"Who would prefer a gray sky to a blue one, and rain to that glorious globe you call the sun?" Jarlaxle asked, curiously waiting for the assassin's response.

"Oh, I don't know," Artemis said. "In the desert, it only rains during one season. The rainy season is when all the flowers bloom." He laughed, "Of course, some of those flowers have enough poison to kill a full grown man in five minutes, so it isn't everyone's favorite season. Enough poison inundates Calimport every year to kill off half of Faerun."

The drow mercenary blinked. "This is a strange world you live in, my friend."

The assassin said, "Food loses its taste when you have to add a cocktail of six different antidotes to everything you eat and drink." He cheerfully leaned forward as the maid brought their food and set it down in front of them. "And that's why I'm glad I'm not in Calimport," Artemis said, carving up his steak into little chunks and impaling one on his fork.

Jarlaxle didn't quite know what to make of this. "…Indeed." He began eating his lamb chops, but soon looked up at the assassin. Does one little conversation really change his outlook so easily? Or has he been drugged? He never talks of Calimport.

As Artemis continued to be unusually cheerful and outgoing, the drow mercenary had a terrifying thought. What if the assassin didn't remember what he'd said last night? He could be acting this way because he buried it in his subconscious and merely experienced a lingering feeling of having resolved something unpleasant.

He replied to Artemis' conversation automatically, worriedly mulling over his friend's transformation. I should be happy for you, he thought, but instead, I'm alarmed. Is my heart really so misplaced?

"I am going to see if there's any missions to take," Artemis said the moment he finished his meal, practically jumping to his feet. "We won't be on vacation indefinitely, and I want to be prepared for our next trip. You have a talent for choosing the weird, the dangerous, and the mundane." He was gone from the inn in under thirty seconds.

He was making Jarlaxle feel old. The drow tossed a handful of coins down on the table and hurried after him. "Aren't you going to ask me to come along?"

"I won't be making any decisions, so I thought I may as well leave you to your beautiful wench and let you have your vacation," Artemis said. He's turned into Smiling Jack, Jarlaxle thought, dismayed. Where's my grumpy assassin?

"Well, ah, I changed my mind," Jarlaxle said, matching his stride and walking beside him. "She wasn't what I had in mind after all."

"Maybe you like following me more than you like wenching," Artemis said.

"Maybe," Jarlaxle agreed. Does he have a split personality? "Why your sudden interest in wenching?" he asked. "I always thought that you stayed aloof in an attempt to save yourself for the wiles of someone special."

"Not really," the assassin said.

"Then why?"

"I didn't feel like it."

This was the strangest answer Jarlaxle had ever heard. How could someone not feel like having sex? "Why your sudden interest, then?" Jarlaxle asked.

The assassin shrugged.

Well, maybe he wasn't a completely changed man, then, Jarlaxle thought. He's still growing aloof whenever one too many questions are asked of him. "Are you having a good day?" the drow asked.

Artemis seemed to think. "Yes," he said.

That was the end of the conversation.

They looked at the postings in the local domain of the bounty hunters, but they each kept finding excuses to shoot down all the offerings.

"Look here," Artemis said, grinning. "Someone's missing a 'famous recipe for quiche'." He raised an eyebrow. "Sounds urgent."

"I don't think we've quite dropped to the depths of being the Custard Patrol," Jarlaxle said, distractedly sifting through other notices. "One person wants a group of orcs slaughtered."

"Boring," Artemis said. "And messy."

"Mmn," the drow said. "Decidedly un-hygiene friendly."

"I think this is where all the freaks come out the woodworks," Artemis said, actually beginning to laugh. "I have here a request for a missing button that says a helpful note at the bottom: 'I think the seamstress stole it'." He shook his head. "At least they're being logical."

"And it seems that someone else suspects a neighbor of being a werewolf, and wants someone like us to investigate," Jarlaxle said dryly. "Well, my friend, this small town seems to be run amuck with gossip, triviality, and not much else."

Once they finally returned to their room for the evening, both of them were exhausted. However, before Jarlaxle was hardly through the doorway, the assassin stopped and turned around to face him. He looked at his companion questioningly.

"Jarlaxle," Artemis said. His voice was rough. He cleared his throat. "I have to –" He uncomfortably shifted his weight to his other foot and tried to relax his shoulders, striving to make his stance less aggressive. "I…_want_…to…" He'd never cared enough to figure out a polite way of asking this before. When he asked the barmaids, he could never gather together the words, and always found orders and commands on the tip of his tongue instead of the smooth, teasing way that Jarlaxle was able to dance around the subject and still get what he wanted.

Jarlaxle froze, and in spite of himself, he glanced at their bed, wondering if he would ever get there. The man appeared to be blocking the way, preparing some sort of discussion, but at such a slow rate that Jarlaxle feared it would be well into the night before either of them got any rest. I've stood on my feet enough today. The least he could do is allow us to sit down. "Entreri?" Jarlaxle said, narrowing his eyes. He moved forward and tried to maneuver the assassin out of his way, sidestepping him.

Artemis blocked his way and held out his hands. "This had better be done standing. I don't want to have a confrontation due to either of us being cornered."

There's going to be a confrontation? The drow considered himself foolish for allowing himself to think that their disputes were over for another three or four months. "What is it?" he said, preparing for the worst. He was ready for anything; most of all, ready for Artemis to draw his dagger and direct it at him in violence.

The assassin tried to smile reassuringly. Instead Jarlaxle felt as though he were looking at his own death. Artemis saw this reaction and quickly stopped smiling. The assassin was afraid that Jarlaxle would back up against the window and escape from him as he tried to bring this up. He gave Jarlaxle direct eye contact, closed the gap between them, and made no sudden moves, placing his hands on the drow's shoulders.

Artemis felt him twitch, and Jarlaxle's eyes darkened at this familiar gesture.

"I am saying what I am about to say because I trust you," Artemis said, attempting to invoke the same sense of calm that the drow had seemed to convey the other night, calming him down. The assassin kept eye contact.

"And I you," Jarlaxle said, but his body remained tense. Let's get on with this.

"Do you want to know why I have been pursuing women whenever we've come into a town?" Artemis asked. A dirty grin slowly formed on his face. "I happen to know that it's been driving you crazy."

"According to you, I am already crazy," Jarlaxle said. His expression was reserved.

Artemis raised an eyebrow. "Well, then what I am about to tell you will drive you sane."

"Go on." Jarlaxle didn't know what the point of Artemis' game was, but he felt surely that the assassin must be toying with him. This behavior was the same he reserved for enemies before he engaged in battle with them. And the man still hadn't let go of Jarlaxle's shoulders.

"Lately at night I have been lonely," Artemis said, still grinning. It was suddenly easy to tell the drow what he'd been feeling, but he didn't associate that with the fact that he was once again falling back on familiar mannerisms, no matter how ill fitting or ill served. "And now that we're such good friends, I want to ask a favor of you."

"You want me to teach you the art of gentlemanly wenching?" Jarlaxle said, though he knew that that was about as far from the subject at hand as he was likely to get.

"No," Artemis said. "I have something that is better than that. I want to give you the satisfaction you deserve –" He stopped Jarlaxle with a gesture. "No, you're right, ever since you've said those words to me," Jarlaxle feared he knew which ones, "I've been thinking." Artemis raised an eyebrow again, looking positively, homicidally impish. "Why pursue a barmaid when I have _you_?" He poked Jarlaxle in the chest.

With a sting of cold, the drow mercenary went numb from head to foot. He felt as though he were floating in space with no beginning and no end. Jarlaxle watched himself from the end of a long, black tunnel. "When I said 'a man', I did not mean me," Jarlaxle said.

"Are you admitting to something that I should be aware of?" Artemis said with sharp amusement.

"My friend, I am not willing to be your outlet for your pent up desires," Jarlaxle said. The very idea caused ghosts of fear to pass in front of his eyes.

Artemis' expression changed to that of subtle desperation. "I don't _have_ pent up desires," he said, pressing against his companion.

Jarlaxle struggled to disengage himself from the assassin's grip. "I beg to differ," he said, stumbling backwards two steps and putting one hand on the rickety wooden desk behind him. He'd almost bumped into it. "I think you have a lot of desires, and I don't want to have anything to do with them. That is what male whores are for." He gave Artemis a flippant salute, though his expression was anything but flippant at the moment. "I wish you good luck."

Artemis' expression deepened. "I don't want to have to check my consorts for contagious diseases before I have anything to do with them," he said.

"Then perhaps you should have thought of that before you agreed to our partnership," Jarlaxle said, feigning a cough with a half-hearted attempt at a teasing smile.

"That's true," the assassin agreed, his eyes twinkling. "I suppose you could have caught something from the hundreds of whores who have passed through your arms…" Artemis advanced on him jokingly. "But why is it that _you _don't have a permanent relationship floating about somewhere if you're so taken with the idea of me waiting for 'that special someone'? What's keeping you from choosing one of the dozens of legitimate girls who've fallen for you?"

Jarlaxle answered hesitantly. "Too young," he said, trying to grin. "And much too whole-hearted." He was going for a translation of a drow word that referred to the belief that a person's heart was only 'whole' as a small child, before misfortune and disappointment had taken pieces of their heart from them. He was really searching for the word 'naïve', but in the heat of the situation, had been unable to think of the appropriate word. "The only reason they've fallen for me is that they haven't been taught to see the wolf in sheep's clothing."

And it would seem that his companion was a sheep in wolves' clothing, or else the dangerous assassin would never have resorted to asking him instead of taking what he wanted at knife-point.

"I see you fine," Artemis said, pointing at him. "I also see that you're about to fall out the window, either in accident or in an attempt to escape."

"Since when has the blind man stopped following and began leading the wise man?" Jarlaxle said, moving away from the window in defeat. He wanted to slump into the chair, but he knew that if Artemis continued pressing him, he couldn't be safe there.

"I'm not the blind man any more," Artemis said. "I've wised up."

"Ah," the drow said sadly.

"And I want you to consider my proposal," Artemis said, frowning at him in a mixture of disappointment, confusion, and hope.

He grinned hollowly. "Your proposal to do what? Use each other for sexual gratification? To make each of us dependent on the other even in the time we don't spend on the battlefield trying to defend ourselves in the process of fighting others for profit?" Jarlaxle paused, and his manner became pleading. He held his hands out palm up. "Because that's what would happen." At Artemis' look of disbelief, he said, "That's all that _could_ happen, in choosing me for a sexual partner." Jarlaxle's eyes were pained. "I don't want to hurt you." His hands trembled.

"I've seen you with those women," Artemis said frowning accusingly, "and you seem gentle enough –"

"That is _not _intimacy," Jarlaxle said. "I did not think you were fool enough to accept it as anything other than what it is." He drew two gold coins from his purse and held them in one hand, toying with them. His eyes were staring straight into the assassin's. "_This_ is all it takes to make them happy. This is what I use to pay them for their troubles. I take them upstairs, and I give them orders, and because I am gentle, they consent to do it all over again the next night. I don't _love _them." His expression was bitter. "I _use_ them. And that is what you are asking me to do to you." The hard glint in his eye remained as he made a cruel grin, his manner becoming openly mocking. "I don't see your gold, Entreri."

Artemis sat down in the bed, hardly realizing it. "I thought, a long time ago," he said, "that I was incapable of loving anyone."

Jarlaxle's expression was shaken; in place of cruelty, a flicker of anger appeared in his eyes. "I have witnessed an incredible amount of driving force in people on the surface to embrace each other in ways I have never _dreamed_," he said. "Your kind exhibits the potential to forge links to another living being in such closeness that nothing short of death and betrayal can part them from each other! This is what I _want_ for you!"

"You chase profits," Artemis said. "You chase…treasures, and absurd dreams, and power, and domination…You seek to hoard all of the beauty in the world that you see for yourself, from the smallest insect to insurmountable mountains." He stood up. He flung his hand out in frustrated gestures. "Why do you not seek your dreams of _embracing_, and _links_, and _closeness _for _yourself_?"

The drow became quiet. He drained of everything but this quiet, his head and shoulders sagging. Even his cape, which continued to change color, seemed lifeless. The look in Jarlaxle's eyes as they met the assassin's seemed at once ancient and ashamed. "Because I can't have it."

"Because you're a _drow_?" Artemis asked. "_Drizzt _had friends and dreams, and surely you don't consider yourself worse off than a creature like him –"

"_Drizzt_," Jarlaxle said with an expression of deep irony, "didn't learn our ways until the point where even the slightest thought was ingrained like a piece of wood."

I can't believe it. I just heard him liken himself to a piece of wood. Artemis stared at him.

"I am four hundred years old," Jarlaxle said. "I haven't been to the surface until now. I am unable to learn the…heroic philosophies…that exist here on the surface, without combating an entire lifetime of knowledge to the contrary." He was over four hundred years old, really, but he didn't feel as though Entreri needed to know that.

Artemis scowled. "Heroic philosophies," he said, "are not the only schools of thought, 'here on the surface'."

"_You_ have honor compared to the standards of the underground city I have lived in," Jarlaxle said. "Even at your lowest point, you were equivalent to a _paladin _of my kind." His eyes glinted with something that resembled self-hatred too briefly for the assassin to make sure that's what it was. "And I, I assure you, am no paladin."

"I hate paladins," Artemis said. "If I thought you were one, I would have slit your throat long ago."

Jarlaxle knew that he was trying to provide comfort in the only way he knew how. "I cannot accept your offer," the drow said. "I cannot even discuss why it is so."

Artemis' appearance grew cold. "I have told you things," he whispered, "that I would not tell any living being, in the name of what you called 'friendship'."

Jarlaxle turned away from him, grimacing in pain. "I have _told_ you, I cannot tell you." The wide brim of his hat cast a shadow down his face, obscuring it. "Do not ask me any more questions."


	7. Knowing Too Much

After that, the both of them went to bed.

Hours later, the sounds of their steady breathing, and small crumpling noises as they shifted in the dark proved that they were both still awake.

The assassin felt the need to speak first. "I'm sorry for asking," Artemis said.

Jarlaxle couldn't be angry with him. "I'm not." He rolled onto his side and faced the man, though he knew that Artemis couldn't see very well in the dark. "I've been thinking."

"So have I," Artemis said.

Jarlaxle felt a pang of sadness. So they were both awake for the same reason. "Ah." He was exhausted beyond his ability to stand. He knew it wasn't just a physical need for sleep. It was mental fatigue. And yet, he was still trapped in his consciousness, because he couldn't escape the feeling of painful responsibility. "I've been thinking…about us."

The assassin didn't respond.

Jarlaxle took this as an indication that he was ready to be an audience. "I can't…do what you want me to…because that would require me to give up control." He let out a shuddering laugh. "Neither one of us can bear to part with what we have left, and love requires this parting. It would be pretentious to call what we have love." He closed his eyes. "Because of me, it is only possession."

"And lust?" Artemis said. Even if he hadn't been able to see, the drow mercenary would have known that his friend had raised his eyebrow.

Jarlaxle stirred, making a noncommittal gesture. "Lust. How could I forget _that_?"

"Lust is a perfectly healthy emotion," the assassin said. "After all, without it there would be no drive to have children, and the races of Faerun would be doomed. Lust is only dangerous when in the wrong hands."

"Like mine?" Jarlaxle said, a tired grin inadvertently spreading across his face.

"By your definition, I must lead a life free of blame," Artemis said, but his expression was mocking. "I have no lust."

"How can you want to do what you said you wanted to do if you don't have any lust? That's a contradiction, my friend."

Artemis shrugged. "Ah, well, so I contradict. I seem to remember you saying that I am contradictory in nature." He shifted. "I _do _know that if this is lust, then I am keeping it perfectly under control."

"How can you tell?" Jarlaxle said. "You've never had it before." He grinned, less tired.

"Then I'll tell you my symptoms, and then you can tell me whether or not I'm managing it," Artemis suggested, grinning back at him.

"Amusing, Entreri, but no."

"And I felt so sure you would be unable to resist."

"Well, that's lust for you."

Artemis chuckled. "So, what have you been thinking about?"

"I told you," Jarlaxle said.

"No, I mean the rest." Artemis tilted his head at the other man. "Before I rudely interrupted you."

Jarlaxle looked slightly shifty-eyed, but he knew Artemis would be unable to detect it in the dark, so he tried to get away with it. "That was it."

"The great Jarlaxle's mental genius finally revealed," the assassin said. "In four hours, he has one coherent thought on average."

"I'm tired," the drow snapped. He turned his back on Entreri and tried to ignore him long enough to go into reverie.

"Then I suggest you say whatever you were going to say quickly, so we can both get to sleep." Artemis smirked.

"You are being cruel," Jarlaxle said.

"Do you like that?" the assassin asked.

The drow glared at him. "I think that you are definitely _not_ in control of your lust."

"I can't help it," Artemis said. He frowned accusingly. "I'm willing to be more accommodating than you think."

"Be careful how you use the word 'accommodating'. To the wrong people it means you're willing to degrade yourself. Choose your partners carefully," Jarlaxle said. "That is the only advice I will give you. Now _good night_."

The silence in the room burned angrily. The assassin resisted the urge to start a shouting match in the middle of the night, when the whole inn could hear them. He valued his privacy. Artemis resented Jarlaxle's constant implications that he was putting himself in a position to become the injured party in this dispute.

Eventually, the hostility changed to slow, heavy breathing as the both of them succumbed to the rest they desperately needed.

Jarlaxle awoke, rolling his eyes around the room with a moan to make sure that he had actually survived. That was the past, he said to himself. I am past that point. I got past that period in my life a long time ago. He curled up, resolving to stay quiet in order to avoid questions from his friend, who was still out like a light. He tried to distract himself with pondering that expression. A slight smile came to his face. Out like a light.

He couldn't stop himself from thinking, No more groveling.

He reflected on his reverie.

He had been embroiled in a fight between Houses, and he had lost. He'd slipped off to inform his employer of that. His employer's reaction taught him never to do that again, no matter what the situation. The rule he'd abided by at all costs ever since was this: always send somebody else to inform the employer of failure, no matter who, and no matter how much of a tantrum they throw. He would never again get caught in a situation like that. No sooner had he attempted leaving than he discovered that a certain woman felt it necessary for him to pay for her failure to eliminate another House himself. In her estimation, this involved about twelve years of servitude as a common slave. She had forced him to grow out his hair, give up his hat and many of his other articles of clothing he held dear, and his mercenary band thought him lost to her clutches forever. When he escaped, Zak had laughed at the tale, but Jarlaxle could see the anger flashing in his eyes and knew that in truth, his friend was upset. It had taken Jarlaxle nearly 46 years to get his mercenaries back under his leadership again.

It was no doubt Artemis' fault that he had dreamt of this period in his life.

The worst part was that he had dreamed of Zak. There he was, in front of Jarlaxle in every detail, close enough to touch. But Jarlaxle couldn't, bound by the restraints of his own memory.

The last part of the reverie replayed perfectly in his mind.

"Where have you been for the last twelve years?" Zak asked, jovially gesturing in surprise. His fingers signaled, _I thought you were dead._ His expression didn't change. He'd had an irritating way of doing that; sending two messages at once, just to see if Jarlaxle could pick up on them both. The silent message was frequently insulting.

The mercenary grit his teeth. "In servitude." He knew full well that Zaknafein knew where he'd been. The story, he'd heard, was all around Menzoberranzan. An attempt to humiliate him. Well, it worked. "Rendering services to a certain Mistress Yanari."

And Zaknafein had laughed heartily at his predicament, all the while with the spark of anger in his eyes fanning brighter and brighter.

It was probably that anger that got him killed. Jarlaxle knew it was a dream, but he couldn't help himself. The paralysis was broken, so he took his chance. He grabbed Zaknafein by the wrist. "If you value your life, listen to me," he hissed. Zaknafein, shocked, tried to pull away, then stilled as Jarlaxle's words registered with him. The mercenary locked eyes with him desperately. His heart hurt as if he'd been stabbed in it repeatedly. "Whatever you do, don't have a son."

"What are you talking about?" Zak said, grinning uneasily. "Females have children; I can't give birth, son or no."

"Don't you care?" Jarlaxle hissed. "Listen to me!"

"I think you've had one too many drinks, friend," Zaknafein said. "This is a dream."

Jarlaxle stared at him. Then he tremblingly sank to the stone ground of the street and began to cry.

Zaknafein bent over him, as sympathetic as he was capable of. "You have to tell him." He repeated a few minutes later, "You have to tell him."

Jarlaxle hadn't known what he meant, but through his tears, he thought that it was probably some kind of dream thing that was some kind of message to himself.

At that moment, he didn't care.

The whole _world's_ a stupid gray nothing. Jarlaxle clenched his fists.

"I was stupid," he said, blinking away the urge to start crying now that he was awake. "Stupid to think that talking to myself could change what went on in the past."

"And stupid to think that you wouldn't wake me up," Artemis grumbled, turning over and glaring up at him, bleary-eyed.

"I didn't intend to wake you," Jarlaxle said, folding his arms. His hat provided some kind of obscure comfort, so he pulled it back down onto his head and sat there, the brim hiding his face.

To Artemis, he sounded definitely hurt. Though he couldn't see the point, he had a suspicion that if he were really the elf's friend, he'd say something sympathetic. "It's only a couple hours before sunrise. I couldn't have gotten much more sleep anyhow."

He couldn't really do much else, because every time he tried to offer his friend some gesture of compassion, the drow would make him wonder why he ever bothered to do anything other than shove Jarlaxle away when he tried to bestow kindness on Artemis. His friend was truly unfriendly the moment the tables were turned.

And indeed, Jarlaxle didn't reply. He shifted grumpily, and crossed his arms tighter, but that was all. Just when Artemis thought his friend wouldn't say anything, the drow said, "Go away."

That was not something they had ever done to each other. When one wanted to be outside the company of the other, they were the one to leave the room. They acknowledged that the room belonged to both of them, and so neither of them could simply decide to kick the other out. The words he'd heard didn't register with him. "What?"

"Go away," Jarlaxle said. Artemis still couldn't see his face. The elf's voice had a catch in it. "Leave me alone. I have to be alone." When Artemis didn't respond, he said more loudly, "Give me time to myself. I can't wander this thrice-damned circle of hell without being harassed for being _drow_. Leave me alone, and I'll talk to you later. I promise. If I try to convince you otherwise when we next meet, tell me I promised, and I'll take the reminder seriously. Now _go_."

Artemis slowly climbed out of the bed, smoothed the covers down, and buckled his belt around his waist. He carefully tied on his leather armor, and took his cape down on the peg from where it had been the first night of their stay. Without another word, he glanced at his friend, gave a nod, and closed the door behind him.

How he occupied himself he couldn't have said. He honestly didn't remember what happened as hours passed in the common room of the inn. He chose a table against the wall so that he could watch everything that went on in the room.

Travelers came in, smelling of dirt and blood and excrement, hard-soled boots clanking against the wooden planks of the floor.

He sipped a beer on and off, and for once, couldn't think of something uncomplimentary to liken it to.

A bard with a huge brown beard, dressed in an ugly shade of purple, began a boring epic that everyone listened to. Halfway through, Artemis Entreri's awareness was penetrated by the dramatically accented words "Drizzt Do'Urden". He rolled his eyes, taking a pull of his beer, which was now warm, and turned away to scan the stairs.

A gaudily dressed woman with a hat that struck him as a poor imitation of Jarlaxle's with too many feathers walked down the stairs. As she passed, Artemis smelled cheap perfume that invaded his nose with its toxic stench of soap and dried flowers.

Sometime later he realized it was time for lunch.

He glanced inadvertently at the stairs again, but then realized he expected Jarlaxle to appear, which wasn't likely given the state he'd left the man in. He'd probably brood through the whole day.

Artemis decided he wasn't hungry.

Three different women hit on him, but then were driven away by his silence and the dull look of apathy in his gray eyes. He didn't even know whether they were barmaids, and didn't know why he should care.

Then he wondered if Jarlaxle was in the room at all. He glanced at the ceiling, imagining that it gave a view to the room. He imagined it was empty. For all he knew, Jarlaxle had taken advantage of his absence and had taken off, just packed up and departed through the window.

Strangely enough, this didn't worry him.

It took him fifteen minutes of staring at the bar to figure out that this was because he didn't believe it.

The next thing he knew, he glanced out the window and found that it was dark. He jumped up from his chair and paid for his beer, some of which was still in the bottom of his mug. Feeling detached, almost as if he were dreaming, Artemis ran up the stairs two at a time and walked down the narrow hallway with quick, long strides. He shoved open the door.

Jarlaxle was waiting for him. Artemis paused with his hand still on the doorknob. Jarlaxle smiled at him. The drow mercenary tilted his head at him curiously. He was standing in the middle of the room, not far from the door, but he'd given Artemis enough room to come in and shut the door. Artemis did. "Want to know?" Jarlaxle asked, once again the calm person Artemis knew.

He nodded. He didn't mention the time he'd spent waiting, not able to think of anything else.

"I had to think for a long time. A friend of mine told me to tell you –"

Artemis gave a start. He hadn't seen anybody go up or come back down the stairs except for the cheaply perfumed woman.

Jarlaxle smiled at his startled reaction. "Well, he had his own way. I don't want to discount it as a dream, but at the same time, I could give the credit to myself for the decision that I made to tell you." He shrugged. The pause signaled his shift in conversation. "When I was young, I had something happen to me. I hadn't been a successful mercenary with my own organization for more than sixteen years when a miscalculation of mine led me into a mistake." He seemed to have rehearsed this quite a bit, because he was still smiling, and remained sensibly detached from the things he was saying.

Artemis shifted, more to keep from getting stiff than anything else.

The drow mercenary continued, "I was hired to provide manpower for a scheme to take down another House. There was nothing that made this mission more difficult or dangerous than any other mission, so I accepted it. After all, what did I have to lose? House disputes are decided mainly by luck and planning, and I was paid either way." He shrugged again.

His eyes began to get a faraway look. "To be concise, the House that had hired me lost to the House that they had attacked. Because of my mercenaries, I knew before anyone else heard the news. Once they reported that they were losing, I told them to come home, and we managed to escape with only minor casualties."

Jarlaxle began to pace. He needed the movement to keep himself focused on the story. "It didn't surprise me, and being the youth that I was, I did enjoy subjecting females to ridicule and humiliation. A bitterness borne of a youth of oppression." Jarlaxle made a dismissive gesture.

Artemis doubted if anything had really changed. The drow had a bad habit of rubbing people's noses in their failures.

"What did you do?" Entreri sighed.

Jarlaxle beamed ruefully. "I decided to call upon her myself and tell her just how her takeover was faring. It was very satisfying bowing in front of her and being the bearer of bad news." He rubbed his bald head. "Unfortunately, I hadn't counted on the woman that hired me. She was the daughter of the Matron Mother, and my humiliation of her went a trifle deeper than it did with her Mother. Her Mother was the old, wise type. Like an aging dragon. She knew which losses to let go. Unfortunately, she was still a Matron Mother, and so her daughter's suggestion to bar my escape and punish me personally amused the old dragon." Jarlaxle sighed.

"What did she do?" Artemis asked, frowning. "Torture you?"

The drow laughed. "Oh, much more than that, my friend. In the drow circle of things, torture is a slap on the wrist."

"Well, obviously, they didn't sacrifice you," the assassin said.

Jarlaxle grinned. "Lloth wouldn't have me." He tapped his chin innocently. "I believe that was the first thing they tried. Not knowing how important I was, of course." For a moment, he seemed positively gleeful.

"Then what?" Artemis asked.

Jarlaxle's smile faded. "I became Mistress Yanari's 'indentured servant'." He looked at the floor, then raised an index finger and wiggled it warningly. "Never become an indentured servant to a drow. It's a bad idea. They're always changing their ideas about what fulfills your contract or not." He stayed still, looking at the floor for a while longer before he suddenly resumed his pacing. "Anyway, I was trapped in their household for almost twelve years playing the part of a common flatfoot to that woman." His indignant feelings of bruised pride seeped through to his voice. He paused.

"A flatfoot?" Artemis said, looking incredulous. "That's slang for a city guard."

"Well, in drow, it means a messenger or a servant," Jarlaxle said. He resumed pacing. "'Get me my slippers'," he said, flinging out his hand. "'Summon this person,'" he said, flinging out his hand. "'Summon that person,'" he said, flinging out his hand. "It was an endless stream of orders all day, without rest, and whenever she saw me sitting down, she'd order me to do something at the other end of the House and then come back. If I didn't get back quickly enough, she used her whip against me."

The assassin blinked. Jarlaxle in the role of that common servant was absolutely impossible to imagine. "It…sounds terrible." He must've been tired at the end of the day.

"Do you know why I shave my head?" Jarlaxle asked.

Artemis shook his head.

The drow explained, "The length of one's hair indicates the status one belongs to in drow society. Longer hair, more status. That is why nobles take such pride in braiding and decorating their hair. It shows everyone how great they are." At the assassin's puzzled frown, Jarlaxle said, "The reason I shaved my head is because I refuse to be part of that hierarchy. Not even the common people, the lowest of the low, not even beggars shave their heads as I did." He frowned. "What I did was an act of defiance."

He pouted. "And that sadistic woman ruined it all. She forced me to grow out my hair." Jarlaxle turned to Artemis with a pitiful expression. "And she took away my beautiful clothing."

In spite of himself, Artemis almost laughed. "How long have you been wearing that garish ensemble?"

Jarlaxle said primly, "Longer than you can imagine." He made his pitiful face again. "And she took it all away! My hat, my vest, even my cape. She could have left my cape, but she didn't."

"Your boots?"

"I didn't have my boots then, so she couldn't take them," Jarlaxle said. "I didn't get my boots until later."

"How lucky."

"Extremely!" Jarlaxle said. "Or I would have had to steal those back, too." He blinked, looking a little flustered. "But I digress."

"Yes."

"And at night!" the drow said. "You can't imagine what she put me through every night!" He crossed his arms, pacing agitatedly. "I was lucky if I got any sleep at all!" He frowned bitterly. "She was jealous of me." A glint of triumph entered his eyes. "Not all drow have the ability to perform reverie. In fact, most of them can't. They lost the ability when they were children and never regained it. _I_ stayed whole."

Artemis was startled. He hadn't exactly noticed that before. He'd thought that all elves were alike, dark elves or not. At least in some ways.

"I don't think I would have survived had I not been able to hide in reverie," Jarlaxle said. "She would have ran me to exhaustion in two or three days if I had had to get a good eight hours' sleep. She couldn't tell when I was awake and when I was in reverie, you see." He smiled. "Otherwise, she would have made sure I get no sleep." A tremble shuddered through him from head to foot. "She wanted to break me."

Entreri had seen someone, one of his fellow assassins, after being tortured with sleep deprivation. He'd gone insane. He had a sudden flash of the tall, thin man curled up in a corner, his long blonde hair matted and filthy, lashing out at anyone who tried to come near him. He'd starved to death.

Artemis felt sick. He was suddenly glad he hadn't eaten anything for lunch or dinner.

Jarlaxle said, facing the wall, "She was pushed to find other alternatives because of my resistance." His shoulders shook, then stilled. Artemis stared, transfixed. "Sometimes I think she succeeded."

"No," Artemis said. He didn't know if he could stand to hear anymore. He was sorry he'd asked in the first place. He didn't know that he'd spoken out loud.

Jarlaxle seemed to realize that he was upsetting the assassin. "Well, as I said, it was all a very long time ago," he said cheerfully, shrugging. When he turned around, however, he found Artemis staring at him.

"No," Entreri said. "…Finish."

Jarlaxle shrugged again, uncomfortably. "There isn't much more to tell. I told her that she would never break me – which only goes to show you that I hadn't really learned anything up to that point, don't you think? – and she begged to differ." He smiled. "She engaged in a certain kind of abusive relationship, and tried to convince me that I was helpless to stop her. It hurt quite a bit, so I decided that it would be worth it to go along with her and…simply _pretend _that I enjoyed being…ah…forced into submission. It…ah…backfired. I was rather the worse for wear when I escaped eleven years later." He stopped. "So," he said, smiling brightly, "then I made sure that one of my underlings told the employers about our failure. By messenger, if possible."

Artemis looked at the floor. "I…I never saw you that way before. I always thought that you were above such…situations."

There was silence. Then Jarlaxle said, "Thank you, my friend." He seemed to mean it. "I wasn't always that way, but certainly, it has not happened recently. My reputation has grown too large for my position as a plaything."

_Plaything. _

Entreri never thought of himself as weak for the turmoil that he felt, crushing down on him like an ocean of anger and fear. It was so much a part of him that for a long time, those were the only emotions he allowed himself. Their ferocity, their persistence _earned _them a place inside of him.

And in a large part Jarlaxle had convinced him to let go. Jarlaxle had talked to him the other night, had taken the time to get through to go him when he was consumed with these emotions, lost in his dream, and demanded that Artemis listen to him with the only currency he had that Entreri honored.

He demanded that Artemis honor his trust over his overwhelming anger and fear, and in the process, Artemis was forced to let go. Little by little, Jarlaxle listened to what he said, didn't raise a hand against him for saying these things that were obviously betrayals to think, and therefore unacceptable to him to feel. The drow had eased Artemis' death grip on these things, allowing more and more of these incoherent, pain-filled moments through, frightening in their insanity.

And then the pressure was released, and he clung to Jarlaxle like a piece of flotsam in a storm. Then he confessed everything; he'd confessed all of the buried fears that had secretly started his nightmares. They were like corpses in shallow graves underneath what he _knew_, and what he _rationalized_. He allowed them to haunt him, even as he knew that they were waiting to rise up and rip him apart.

He realized then in shame that he _had_ been weak. Ever since his childhood, he'd shown the sense of a man stumbling through a busy street hiding a wound, even from onlookers who followed the trail of blood and tried to treat him. In his head, it had made sense, before. Why should a man trust somebody else when they could be hiding a dagger under their cloak? Artemis was ashamed at the picture that emerged, now. Not even to save his life had he been willing to stop himself from bleeding to death. He should have known that if the worst someone could do was kill him, then the worst wasn't really very bad.

But finally, after hours of contemplation, he came to another realization at what had happened that made his self-image a little brighter. In the end, when Jarlaxle had offered help, he had taken it. He, Artemis, had taken the decision to confide, and in confiding with that someone, he had been treated. There had been no dagger. No additional pain. His wounds were bandaged, and he was alive.

Jarlaxle…

Most of all, his secrets were safe.

Jarlaxle looked at the assassin sharply, wondering what the prolonged amount of silence was for. He had assumed that his words made the other man uncomfortable, but that was contradictory to how his friend was behaving. Artemis usually turned around and left, or changed the subject after a few seconds. He had done neither, and so Jarlaxle wondered. "Are you alright?" the drow asked. His voice was sharper than he had intended, and he winced. "I mean that. I want to know." My emotions are getting the best of me, he thought. It's not a pretty sight.

"Your secrets are safe with me," the man said. His voice had an odd note of slowness to Jarlaxle's ear, as if he had been thinking about it before he said it. That note of slowness was comforting; that was more like the Artemis Entreri he knew. Artemis looked into his eyes. "I will not repeat anything beyond this room, and I will kill anyone who holds this knowledge beyond this room in the attempt to hurt you."

Jarlaxle looked at him. The look in his eyes was contemplative, filled with an emotion that caused a tingle down Artemis' spine. "So you see, I cannot relinquish control," the drow said. "I can give you anything else. You…Your friendship has forced me to uncurl my fist from around some of my most prized possessions, forced me to bequeath myself to you in more ways than I can ever show, and more ways than I hope you will ever know. But the one thing I cannot do," he said, a ghost of a smile flitting across his lips, "is that which you now ask of me." He paused, tilting his head towards the floor, causing the feathers in his hat to flutter. Then he looked up, into Artemis' eyes. He said, "I want you to know that if I could give it…I would consider…you among my first…" The drow's cheeks began to color a delicate shade of black-purple. "…ah…candidates."


	8. Too Much Silence

Artemis grinned broadly. In a twisted way, it reminded Jarlaxle of how he looked at Drizzt sometimes. And now, he's making that expression at me. The expressions were so similar that it only drove Jarlaxle's sadness deeper. The closest friend the assassin had had was his enemy, the drow thought. He is a man who is more honest to his enemies than his friends.

The assassin approached him. "There is only one problem with the argument that you are going to hurt me if we ever get laid."

"That is?" Jarlaxle said. Artemis put his arms around him, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his upper arm. Too stunned to do anything else, he let Artemis guide him to the bed, where they both promptly sat down.

Entreri shifted his hands to Jarlaxle's ribcage, holding him in an embrace that was far gentler than anything he knew the assassin was capable of. He was… He is hugging me, Jarlaxle thought, stunned, inadvertently leaning back into Artemis.

"You have a paternal streak a mile wide," the assassin said. "You couldn't possibly let any harm come to me." Artemis didn't mind that the feather of Jarlaxle's hat was brushing against his face. It was soft, and being tickled in the face with that feather was so ridiculous that he found it funny.

Jarlaxle shook his head, brushing the feather back and forth along Artemis' face. The assassin resisted the urge to laugh, closing his eyes and enjoying the feel of it. The drow was oblivious. "You don't know any better," he said. "You couldn't possibly understand…"

"You're afraid you will harm me."

"Don't act so surprised!" Jarlaxle snapped, shoving him away. "We've been going on about this for days! I care! You care! End of story!"

Artemis shifted, sitting down further away from him with a determined, unperturbed expression on his face.

Jarlaxle glared at him. He could feel his heart beating.

"How can you hurt me?" Artemis asked. "I am an assassin."

"You can't protect yourself from me," Jarlaxle said. He closed his eyes, feeling himself quickly becoming overwrought. "Why can't you be like everyone else and judge me by my black skin? I'm a dark elf. To anyone else but you, that means that I am _dangerous_!" He swung his fist in anger without thinking what would happen if he actually managed to connect. "Go find a mate of your own kind!"

Artemis effortlessly caught his fist. "You're blinded by selfishness, but everyone has their moments," the assassin said. His eyes held nothing but certainty. He leaned forward. "My kind doesn't want me."

"Nonsense," the drow mercenary said. "_Nonsense_."

Artemis raised his eyebrow. "Nonsense?" he said. "Then _you_ don't want me."

Jarlaxle threw his body down as he slammed his fists down on the bed in front of him. "Don't do this to me!" he shouted. The brim of his hat hid his face, and his shoulders shook. Every part of him seemed to be in pain.

Life _is _pain, he could hear Zak saying to him.

"I'm not afraid of you," the man said. "You are." Artemis hesitated, then took off the drow's hat, trying to see his face. "I am not afraid of you. _You_ are afraid of you."

Jarlaxle's eyes were squeezed shut, and he clenched his jaw. He couldn't speak. He wanted more than anything, even more than he wanted gold, to be able to cry. He wanted to scream until he felt better.

The assassin thought of Jarlaxle as being overdressed somehow, of being somehow untouchable, and thought that if only he could strip the elf down, then he'd be able to see the thing he was trying to see in his friend. He reached out and touched the string of Jarlaxle's eye patch.

"Don't. Touch. Me." He was afraid that he'd burst. He didn't know whether he would become violent, or whether he would just start weeping.

Artemis snatched his hand away. "I can't be hurt by you."

"Yes, silly _boy_, you can."

The assassin grabbed a hold of the collar of Jarlaxle's shirt and hauled him up until they met eye to eye. The man's fist was white-knuckled. "Never call me 'boy'."

Jarlaxle stared at him.

Artemis didn't let go. "You may be my friend, but I have no qualms that prevent me from killing you the moment you have a slip of the tongue."

"I don't think you mean that," the drow murmured, blinking at him with wide eyes.

"Try it again and find out."

Jarlaxle thought seriously about this. In his position, what did he have to lose? He was in a low mood right now. The world ending seemed like a comforting idea. However, he had a vague inkling that he might possibly feel differently at some point in the future, though he had no idea the hell why. He erred on the side of caution. "No, thank you."

Artemis released him with an angry shove.

The drow sullenly sat up and faced the assassin without caring in the least that Artemis had taken his hat. Making that snide comment had released some of the pressure he felt inside, but none of the urge to cry. He had to settle this once and for all. In his state of mind, he couldn't figure out _how_. "You do realize that if it turns into something serious, you will be dead in short order and I will live on for hundreds of years?"

Artemis didn't look impressed. "On the other hand, your big mouth could get us both killed before the week is out."

"My mouth is not big. It is proportional to my face," Jarlaxle said. He needed something to argue about, and the more petty, miniscule, and pointless it was, the better. "Being my partner does not give you the right to judge what size my mouth is."

"And what does, exactly?" the assassin asked. He grinned. "Is there a license for that?" Absurdly, he imagined a man on a throne being fanned with palm leaves, an endless line of people in front of him, all waiting for his decree, the chamber echoing with 'Big!' 'Next!' 'Small!' 'Next!' 'Medium!'

"If there is, go get one and then come back and tell me my mouth is huge," Jarlaxle said. He didn't know what he was going on about, but it had kept him from crying, so he wanted to keep talking until well into the next morning.

"You're exaggerating again. I said 'big', not 'huge'." Artemis looked amused.

"I can exaggerate the size of my mouth however I want to," Jarlaxle said, glaring. He was desperately clinging to this thread of the conversation, hoping that Entreri would play along.

But Artemis Entreri had had enough. He said, his face suddenly serious, "You don't have a paternal streak, then. You're just a coward, looking for a way out of a situation you know you'd be overpowered in."

The drow stared. Please, no, don't do this, he thought. Not now. Wait. But he was speechless. He _couldn't_ say anything to stop the man.

"By 'not wanting to give up control', you don't mean that you'd be the dominant one," the assassin continued. "What you mean is that you know you'd end up being the weaker one, and you are afraid of becoming what you were over a hundred years ago. A bootlicking toy, begging for your life in return for sex."

Jarlaxle couldn't stop staring. He found his voice. "I beg your pardon?"

Artemis stared back impassively. The assassin was being deliberately harsh, trying to force the elf into facing what he believed to be the truth. "Or is it that you argue to prolong the inevitable? You believe me to be the kind of gutter _scum_ that would take what I wanted –"

Jarlaxle couldn't stand it any longer. He looked away, waving one of the wands from his belt and dropping the room into a magical silence. The drow trembled. Please, don't go on, just shut up.

Artemis finished his sentence, but realized what Jarlaxle had done.

Jarlaxle felt Artemis grab his arm and try to turn him around. His eyes snapped to the assassin, frightened. He tried to yank his arm away.

His companion yanked it back roughly.

The drow tried to make an exclamation into the silence, unreasoningly paranoid until he remembered that Artemis' reflexes were so sharp that the man wouldn't have had time to think before yanking Jarlaxle's arm.

He instantly regretted making the room a no-talking zone. Artemis was mouthing something at him that he wasn't getting. The assassin stopped, looked disgusted, and then signed with his hand, _Now this is the only way to talk in here. _

_I don't mind_, Jarlaxle said with a little wave of his hand. _It's peaceful in here now. I think I've done us both a favor._

_Thank you, _Artemis said. That word in drow always had overtones of sarcasm, or in pleasing situations, irony.

Jarlaxle made a sigh into the silence.

Then the assassin's hand gestured awkwardly, _I didn't know that I would upset you… This way._

There was a pause because that was hard to say in drow sign language, and certain words like 'I'm sorry' or 'I love you' would be impossible, as there _was_ no gesture. The closest to an apology was a mocking, 'I'm sorry I didn't kill you but I will next time'.

_Do you want your hat? _Artemis asked.

Not remotely. He shook his head. _I don't give a rat's ass_. He looked disgusted. _A waste of magic, and a waste of more magic to put it right. _

_Then don't_, Artemis said. _Maybe if you don't have to speak, you'll start answering my questions. _

Jarlaxle leaned back against the foot-board of the bed and gave the assassin a reserved look that meant, 'What?'

The man hesitated, then shifted forward and placed his hand on the drow's thigh while signing out, _Are you feeling this? _which Jarlaxle automatically translated as _Are you attracted to me? _The drow swallowed heavily as Artemis' warm, firm hand stroked his leg. The sensation was vivid through the material of his pants.

No, he mouthed. His hand twitched, betraying him. _Yes – no, stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. _He was trembling all over. He helplessly kept signaling for Entreri to stop.

Artemis took Jarlaxle's hand, removing his hand from Jarlaxle's thigh. His gray eyes searched for forgiveness. _I had to know, _he gestured.

_This shouldn't be happening_, Jarlaxle said with his free hand. He looked as though he feared terrible consequences.

_When it comes to me, _the assassin signaled, _why do you not do – _He came up against a language barrier. He thought quickly. _– what you want to do?_

The fact that they were even having this conversation, in the dim light of a single lantern on the dresser, in a sphere of magical silence, meant that there was no way to dissuade Artemis unless Jarlaxle did a demonstration for him.

This is not what I wanted, Jarlaxle thought. I wanted him to be happy, not chasing some ideal of a man/woman relationship that wouldn't hold up to his expectations. I thought it would be so simple to set him in the right direction and let him take everything from there. The drow mercenary hung his head. He didn't know why he'd thought that with a little ingenious meddling, he could fix everything. Now he'd confused his friend, caused an endless stream of arguments for four days, and dropped himself into boiling water in the process of trying to explain that attraction to a man was just as real as attraction to a woman.

He was coming up with a plan in the back of his head, but the thought of actually having to go through with it made him unhappy. I don't want to do this. If it doesn't work, it could end our friendship. It was a painfully high stake for him to make.

Artemis was looking at him with a guarded expression, waiting for him to answer.

Jarlaxle knew it had to be this moment. _Is this what you want_?

He grabbed the assassin by the arms and shoved him against the bed with a silent vibration of popping springs. He forced all of his weight down upon Artemis and kissed him on the mouth. He expected Artemis to struggle under him and force him away. He felt Artemis' hands gripping his back.

The assassin locked mouths with Jarlaxle, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching at the drow's thin body, pulling him close. Jarlaxle felt the buttons of his vest grind into his companion's chest. The warm scent of leather and sweat flared in his nostrils as he struggled against the assassin. Artemis' tongue ran across the underside of the drow's upper lip. He turned away, feeling their lips part.

Artemis was crushing him in a strong embrace, the rough fabric of his shirt brushing against the side of Jarlaxle's face. He felt his will to escape sapping out of him. The man's arms around his waist turned into a comforting closeness. He felt his arms hang limp at his sides. He weakly pushed against the assassin's chest, still trying to make some token effort to escape.

He felt his hands slide across Artemis' wrinkled shirt until they reached Artemis' sides. Jarlaxle slowly ran his fingers up and down the man's waist, tenderly plucking at the fabric of the shirt. He'd never been so close to someone in his entire life.

Artemis didn't move; he only held the drow, his eyes closed, as if he were receiving some emotional benefit from feeling someone in his arms.


	9. Too Late

Jarlaxle held his head in his hands. "I started out so well removed. I knew what I was doing. How did it go so… _wrong_?"

"You fucked up," Zaknafein said, flicking his dagger at the rats infesting Jarlaxle's cellar.

They always went there to talk. Until Jarlaxle got rid of the nest of giant rats, he wouldn't be able to store anything there without the rats chewing through all the crates and eating it. That meant it was safe from interruption, as no one else had excuses to run down here for a wheel of cheese, or some rothe, of another bottle of wine. This was in the early days of Jarlaxle's mercenary organization. They were still reclaiming the property from the various creatures that had infested it and made it as cheap as it had been when the bald drow bought it.

Jarlaxle heard a shrill shriek and knew that Zaknafein had bull's eyed another large rodent. "You don't know what I'm talking about," he said. "You aren't even listening."

"Why should I, when all that you're doing is bitching like a priestess who's been robbed of carving someone's heart out?"

Jarlaxle looked at him and found that his friend's expression was hard.

"Look," Zak said, "why don't you just wrap a shroud around the body, dump it in the wilderness, and forget about it?" He growled.

He walked across the room, kicking rats out of his way, and pulled his dagger out of the furry corpse slumped on the ground in a pool of blood. He wiped it off on the body and crossed the room, eyeing his targets. The rats were too afraid of him to attack.

"You're terrorizing those rats," Jarlaxle said, changing the subject even though he knew his friend would know and change it back.

"What were you doing?" Zaknafein asked, narrowing his eyes at the rodents. They squeaked preemptively in fear.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Don't make me throw this at you," Zaknafein, hefting his dagger threateningly.

Jarlaxle averted his eyes and watched a spider the size of his hand weaving a web in the corner. His skin prickled. He didn't remotely want it there, but it had almost bitten his hand when he'd tried to shoo it away, so he wisely withdrew and let it spy on him. "I was having –" He couldn't make himself say it. He thought of ways to rephrase that. "- having _alone time_," he said, lifting his head and trying to preserve what dignity he had left.

He winced at Zaknafein's turn of phrase, which involved priestesses and rothe doing something unspeakable together. Then he said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

He'd been wondering the same thing, but he didn't want Zaknafein saying that to him. Damnit, he wanted sympathy. He wanted his friend to ask what happened without automatically calling him disturbed. He put his head in his hands again.

"I thought you said you'd never do anything like the games priestesses play." His friend's glare was accusing, even offended.

Jarlaxle felt impaled on a spear of shame. "I didn't mean to."

"What did you say?"

Jarlaxle shouted, "I didn't mean to!"

Zaknafein grabbed his forearms, pulled him closer, and forced Jarlaxle to look at him. "Talk to me." He'd instantly gone from angry to afraid.

Jarlaxle felt the harsh pain of despair in his chest. "I know, it's not like me," he said, and he began to laugh. The despairing, caustic sound slowly grew louder. "It's not like me. Even Ghettarn would say so," he said, thinking back to the heavily muscled drow in his bedroom, lying with numerous cuts and a broken neck. He shut his eyes. He tried to block the scene from his mind by drowning it out with his laughter.

He almost let out a yelp of panic as his friend's arms locked around him with crushing force. Jarlaxle thought, He's killing me? Zaknafein's arms didn't tighten, cracking his ribs. The drow's arms embraced him, holding him. The crushing darkness Jarlaxle found himself lost in was welcome.

Jarlaxle gasped, jolted out of reverie by the body shifting against him. He panicked at finding himself still in someone's embrace, struggling to get away.

Artemis growled sleepily, releasing his grip on the drow mercenary. He blinked in the darkness, which was currently as black as the drow's skin. "What?"

Jarlaxle huddled on the furthest corner of the bed he could find without falling off, accidentally pulling the covers with him. He breathed heavily, clutching the comforter, his heart beating wildly. "I can't let you do this," he said. He registered in the back of his mind that the globe of silence had expired, allowing them to speak freely again.

Artemis grinned. "You already have," he said, sliding over and planting a kiss on Jarlaxle's lips.

The drow stared at him, shaken. He touched his lips. Artemis' kiss had felt oddly affectionate. "I…What?" He tried to remember what he'd done.

"Did you think that what you did would intimidate me?" the assassin asked, looking amused. "I was waiting for the first opening you gave me."

Jarlaxle looked at him flatly. "You don't know what you're doing." He had to stop the man before he got farther.

"That's your paternal streak showing again," Artemis said, kissing his neck. It felt like a rough scrubbing brush with a soft center. Entreri grinned and slipped his hands under Jarlaxle's shirt, squeezing the drow's hips. Jarlaxle struggled with his feeling of arousal, feeling his grip on the situation starting to slip. How could it end up like this?

"If I really cared about your safety, I wouldn't have ever chosen to sleep in the same room as you."

"You're making excuses," the assassin said.

"And what do _you_ have to say about this?" Jarlaxle said, looking at him sharply.

Artemis nuzzled his neck. "I don't need excuses."

Jarlaxle found himself trapped between the bed and Artemis' body as the assassin lay on top of him. He suddenly felt hot. "I'm not doing this."

"You don't have to do anything," Artemis said, grinning. At the very real flash of fear in his companion's eyes, he said, expression worried, "I mean that. I'm not going to do anything, and you don't have to do anything."

The drow kissed him on the lips and flung his arms around Artemis' neck, clinging to him. "Then let me go," Jarlaxle said. He kissed the man on the lips again. "Let me go."

Artemis slid off of him and went back to his side of the bed. He lay on his side, looking at the drow curiously through a sheet of dark, disheveled hair that fell down over part of his face. Then he yawned. "What's the matter?" he said. "Or can I go back to sleep?"

Jarlaxle sat up and put a hand to his hand, covering his exposed eye. He still wore his eye patch. "How long have I been asleep?"

"A couple hours," Artemis said. "Why?"

The drow hung his head. "It seems like a long time ago," he admitted.

"What," Artemis asked, "since you gave into your uncontrolled lust and had to have me?" He grinned. "After saying that there was no way we could possibly have sex together?"

"And we still won't," Jarlaxle said in an instant. He hadn't known he was about to say that, but now that he had, he was absolutely sure that he had to make sure that they never, ever attempted such a thing. His eyes flashed. "I'm drawing the line here."

The assassin regarded him incredulously. "You can't be serious. You expect me – and you – to be in the same bed without ever committing –" He stopped, the insanity of it all crashing in around him.

"It's not safe." The drow mercenary's expression was firm. "I am not going to explain why, because it is not necessary for you to understand what I'm talking about. It's not safe, and you are not to tempt me like this ever again."

The assassin's face was burning in anger. "I am not some young mercenary from your band of reckless anarchists," Artemis said. His hand gripped the hilt of his dagger. It was a matter of control, keeping his temper in check. He squeezed it, knowing that if he held it, he couldn't do something more substantial, like sock his companion in the face. "I am going to ask, once, for the respect I deserve. I am not going to ask again."

"Do you demand more stories from my past?" Jarlaxle said, looking away. He was beginning to be upset himself. "I don't have to explain myself to you." He knew that he was ripping out all the stitches he'd put in to sew up their relationship, but the part of himself that realized that couldn't stop the part of himself that was blindly angry at being put in this position.

"That is true," Artemis said. His eyes were bitter. "But your curiosity, my friend, continues to find ways of tricking me into revealing the things that I would not have told _you_."

Jarlaxle was stung. He shut his eyes, against his will remembering all the times he had done just that, as fiercely as he wanted to deny the assassin's words. His voice came out a timid whisper. "Is it…so one-sided?"

"You've been hiding from me."

"I wish I had never inquired about your dreams," Jarlaxle said. If only I hadn't wanted to know so much…

"Then you shouldn't have!" Artemis wrapped his arms around his companion from behind, desperately nuzzling his neck. His face was up against Jarlaxle's vest. He didn't know what he was doing. He'd never felt so confused in his entire life, and the uncustomary admission intensified this reality.

Warm, soft sensations, coupled with something prickly, brushed against the drow's scalp. He let this go on for a few seconds in silence, his brow furrowed. Jarlaxle paused. "Are you kissing my head?" Artemis squeezed his waist in response. "Stop that!" He ineffectively swatted the assassin's arm. "It's embarrassing."

"Why?" Artemis whispered directly in his ear. Jarlaxle felt the hotness of his breath.

"Because it's _my_ head," the drow said, crossing his arms. "I say so."

The assassin let out a small, husky laugh, deep in his throat.

"This is no laughing matter," Jarlaxle said, waving an index finger in the air without turning around. "This is a very serious problem you've gotten ourselves into." The assassin laughed again. "Very serious," he said, trying to catch a glimpse of Artemis' face to judge whether or not the assassin was listening.

"Good night," Artemis said, withdrawing with a teasing grin. He made himself comfortable and closed his eyes, preparing to go back to sleep.

Jarlaxle almost protested, but caught himself in time and watched as Artemis Entreri drifted off to sleep again, a smile curled across his face.

"Oh, dear," he moaned, and buried his face in his hands.


	10. Epiphany

He thought he'd never be able to go back to reverie, but exhaustion consumed him.

"I thought you'd never get back," Zaknafein said, waiting impatiently with his hands on his hips. They were in the rat infested cellar…

No, now they were in Jarlaxle's old bedroom, its shabbily furnished interior even more shabby than usual, broken items strewn across the floor that once were whole and magically ticking away on his stone desk.

Jarlaxle's vision temporarily spun. He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes.

"What were you doing, anyway?" his friend said.

"Being awake," Jarlaxle said irritably. "And this isn't the way the dream is supposed to go."

"Why do you think I give a fuck?" Zaknafein said, with a grin. "I never follow the rules, remember? I just pretend to."

"You know you're in my head, don't you?"

"Maybe you're in mine," he said, flipping his dagger into the air and catching it. He seemed to enjoy that, so he did a repeat performance.

"Please, not _now_," Jarlaxle said.

"Oh, I know," Zaknafein said, leaning over and putting a hand down on the mercenary's bed, gesturing to the mangled body that suddenly appeared there. "You're still sorry for this poor bastard."

For a moment, Jarlaxle thought he was going to faint or be sick or be sick and then faint. That body wasn't there until he looked at his bed. "Why is this happening to me?" he said.

"You're having a hysterical breakdown," Zaknafein said. "Why else would _I_ be here?" He flipped his dagger into the air and caught it again. "You disposed of my body in a shallow grave so long ago that the memories you have of me are spun-sugar fictions." He paused. "Well, most of them, anyway. You still remember the way I threw up exotic shellfish all over the floor because you'd secretly slipped in scorpion fish just to see if I could eat it." He crossed his arms. "The priestess of the academy had me cleaning up that hallway for hours with a toothbrush, I'll have you know."

"So that's why you weren't at classes that morning," Jarlaxle murmured, stepping closer to the body, consumed with examining the slight details of his dead lover. The minute specks of blood on his death-pale cheek…the way his mouth was slightly open, exposing bright white teeth, savagely pointed…the pearly strands of hair out of place.

"I think she would have liked me to do it with my tongue," he said.

"Don't they always." The bald mercenary wasn't really listening. Jarlaxle was so close that he could almost touch noses with the dead drow. He reached out with his hand, fingertips tingling, but he didn't know what he intended to do.

His friend was suddenly beside him, at his left. "What are you thinking?" he asked, watching Jarlaxle with a contemplative, almost suspenseful look, the tone of his voice impassive.

"I'm thinking…" Jarlaxle said, pausing, "that he wasn't really all that handsome."

The other man nodded, waiting for Jarlaxle to continue.

The bald mercenary glanced at his friend, then back to the body. He forced himself to concentrate on it. "I'm thinking…I don't think I did this," he said, and blinked in surprise. The angle of Ghettarn's neck was unnatural, being broken, but he couldn't remember breaking it. He held his hands out, trying to figure out how he would have…could have, twisted it…like so… He just couldn't make sense of it. There couldn't be anyone other than myself responsible for this, could there?

"I don't know, could there be?" Zaknafein said, seeming unperturbed at having read Jarlaxle's thoughts.

"I thought my door was secure. There was no one else in the room," Jarlaxle said. "There were only two people here. Me, and him." He tried to think back to that day, staring at the body. "I don't…I don't think I like him," he said.

The other drow raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you get into bed with him?"

Jarlaxle reached another blank. "I don't know."

Zaknafein said, "Had you ever slept with Ghettarn before?"

"No," Jarlaxle said. That was odd. He knew that was a strange thing for himself to have done, but he didn't immediately have a reason at hand for that. "I don't think so…"

"Then what were you doing when you were fooling around?" Zaknafein said, acting exasperated.

The mercenary had a brief flash of himself, struggling against the bed and nearly throwing off the covers, fully clothed, and the large, bulky drow kneeling over him. The mercenary shook his head, trying to dissipate it like smoke. Instead, he came back to something else that was disquieting to him. "I don't think I'm sorry I did it," Jarlaxle said. Inside, he didn't feel much of anything when he looked at Ghettarn, all lumpy and lifeless, just taking up space. "What did I do in real life?" he asked. He couldn't remember much. It had slipped his mind, as if it wasn't important.

"You called me, you met me in the basement, we talked, you broke down, you and me hauled his body to the wilderness and left it there, and no one noticed what we'd done." Zaknafein shrugged.

"But what did I say happened?" Jarlaxle waited for Zaknafein's answer, looking him in the eye, perplexed.

"You said you raped him." Zaknafein turned away, unconcerned.

"No, that's not right," the mercenary said. It burst from him without his will. The words 'you raped him' were in his head, rearranging themselves horribly. It was almost too much – then he felt himself get past some barrier he didn't know existed. The words slapped sickeningly into their new place, and he was almost driven to his knees by them. He mouthed the words silently, his voice failing him, then he said, "He raped me."

"You said that after the first time I started questioning you," Zaknafein said, and at least _he_ was calm. "First you said, 'It's my fault. I raped him'. It was all you would repeat, like some mantra or something." He turned towards Jarlaxle. "But then when I kept on questioning you – 'why?' 'how?' – That sort of thing, you know – I said, 'If you raped him, then why did you call me by messenger and tell me to get over here?' – And you started saying 'He raped me'." The other drow shrugged.

Jarlaxle felt himself throw up a little in his mouth.

Zaknafein said, "You're not such a sick fuck after all. You didn't do it."

His bones hurt. He stared at the floor. "I didn't do it," he said. He almost felt worse than before. He saw himself as so helpless, now. Raped by someone, then forced to break their neck to escape. But he did escape; he looked at Ghettarn. There were long slashes across his bare chest, and Jarlaxle had obviously kept fighting until he was able to escape, able to kill then other drow. His limbs started shaking. "I'm not…I'm not a rapist, I didn't hurt anyone…like that…" Jarlaxle sank to his knees and curled his body towards the floor, weeping uncontrollably in relief. "I didn't do it!" The feathers on his hat bobbed. "I didn't do it!"

Zaknafein went to him and gruffly patted him on the back. "It took a while. You take too much responsibility on yourself. I don't know where you get that inclination. It's nothing like a Drow."

When Jarlaxle woke up, daylight was streaming through the shutters in thin bands across the bed. He was sprawled out on his back, hatless, in vest and pants. He'd left his earrings in. Then he looked over at Artemis' back and realized that his eye patch was missing. He looked around for it.

When he shifted, one of the springs made a dull noise, and Artemis rolled over. A smile spread across the assassin's face. "So you're up," Entreri said, raking his hair out of his eyes with a hand. "I was resigned to lie here and think all day. What took you? Get to sleep late? Or were you merely sleeping in for a change?"

Jarlaxle thought of a lot of things to say, but what came out was, "What in the world did you do with my eye patch?"

Artemis held it up. He was holding it in one hand. "I thought you looked better with it off," he said. He let Jarlaxle take it back.

The elf slipped it onto his right eye. "I don't want somebody randomly coming along and reading my thoughts," he said.

"Because they would read like a porn novel?" Artemis asked, shifting closer and rubbing against him.

"Something like that," Jarlaxle admitted, modestly averting his eyes. "It would ruin all the fear people have for me, and any suspense on the battlefield."

"Heaving bosoms?" the assassin said, raising an eyebrow.

"Not this time," Jarlaxle said, eyeing the man's chest. He wanted to slip his hand into the v-neck of Artemis' shirt. His chest was smooth, light brown, and almost hairless. The drow felt his pulse rise.

Artemis reached up and carefully unclasped Jarlaxle's right earring. "This could be dangerous," he said. He removed it from his companion's earlobe.

"How?" Jarlaxle asked, unclasping the other and holding a hand out for its mate. He tucked them both into a pocket on his belt. He didn't fail to notice Artemis' eyes following the drow's hands.

The assassin's reply was a little incoherent.

The drow languorously wrapped his arms around Artemis' waist and reclined onto his back, smiling like a cat. "What was that?" he asked.

Artemis stayed on his hands and knees uncertainly. "What are we doing?"

"Celebrating," Jarlaxle said. He made to pull the assassin down closer to him.

"A vacation?"

"Whatever you want," Jarlaxle said. He watched a smile grow across his friend's face. "I mean to reverse the decision of last night." He waved a hand grandly, as though he were a king granting someone pardon, and put on a dignified expression.

Artemis gladly settled on top of him. He kissed the drow's neck. "Been made to see sense?"

"In my dreams."

The assassin said something that sounded like mumbling and then "…dreams, isn't it?" He was kissing Jarlaxle's ear.

"Shove me against the bed," Jarlaxle said, a pleading look in his eyes. He smiled.

Artemis shoved all of his weight down on his companion's body, flattening him against the protesting springs underneath them.

The drow arched his back, feeling himself becoming aroused. This time he didn't feel any of the guilt he'd been burdened with before.

He felt a certain region of his body throb.

He kissed Artemis, slowly and gently, and he felt the assassin's lips part. He ran his tongue behind Artemis' teeth.

The assassin pressed against his chest in response, lips pushing against Jarlaxle's. He closed his eyes, and they were both kissing without the other wanting to stop. They repeatedly broke up to take in gasps of air before their mouths passionately collided with each other again in slightly clumsy lust.

Then Artemis felt a hand brush his groin, which reacted in a way that set the assassin's face on fire. His body twitched, and Jarlaxle's hand quickly withdrew.

"I'm, sorry," Jarlaxle said between kisses, catching his breath. "I didn't know," Artemis forced him to stop for a few moments as they kissed again, "if you wanted to," Artemis stopped and let him finish, blinking at him, "I shouldn't have –"

Artemis smiled and cupped the side of Jarlaxle's face with his hand. He leaned forward, closing his eyes, and kissed the drow.

Jarlaxle felt the warm, callused hand on his cheek, rubbing his smooth skin affectionately. He became lost in the world of sensations in and around his mouth.

Artemis' hand moved down to his chin, then stroked his neck. It slid to Jarlaxle's vest. He felt Artemis tugging at his buttons, trying to release them. One, two, three, and the fourth tug ended in the buttons popping from their holes and a new, loose sensation on the drow's chest of fabric sliding across skin.

Artemis tenderly stroked the drow's chest, feeling hard muscle under Jarlaxle's shirt. He positioned a willing Jarlaxle's arms at his sides on the bed and slipped the drow's vest all the way off, Jarlaxle cooperating. "What do I do with this?" Artemis asked.

"Throw it on the floor," Jarlaxle said, looking unconcerned. When Artemis dropped it gently over the side of the bed, he grasped at Artemis' arms, tugging on him in an urgent signal to continue. Artemis grabbed his shirt and lifted it over his head while he was too surprised to resist and started to kiss his chest.

He didn't know what to do, so he lay there limply and let the man.

Artemis slowly worked his way back up to Jarlaxle's neck. Then chin. Then back to the drow's eagerly waiting mouth, which anticipated this move and met him halfway.

Jarlaxle considered rolling over and pinning the assassin to the bed so that he could have his turn on top, but he didn't fell like it. He was content where he was.

One of the assassin's hands strayed to his ear, lightly stroking it with his fingertips, occasionally moving over the point of Jarlaxle's ear, as if curious. Jarlaxle found this seeming naivete strangely moving.

Artemis felt Jarlaxle's arms around his waist, the drow's hands on his back comfortingly. He'd never felt so safe before, not in anybody's presence. He knew that even if they were interrupted, Jarlaxle would defend him, and he would defend Jarlaxle. It allowed him to do things he wished without fear of what was going to happen.

The drow felt Artemis' other hand suddenly between them, on his chest. He felt the man rub his hand over Jarlaxle's right breast. Jarlaxle gasped in the middle of their kiss and was momentarily stunned. He felt the tension in the region below his waist increase and shut his eyes. Small beads of sweat formed on his scalp.

The drow's hands clutched at Artemis' back convulsively. The assassin felt the space between Jarlaxle's legs pulse, which made his pulse in response. This is the furthest I've ever been with any living being, he suddenly thought. I'm actually doing it. I'm having a…a… a tryst with someone. He pressed his lips against Jarlaxle's with all of his soul, trying to block out any other thoughts to keep them from interrupting him.

Jarlaxle felt the surge of passion behind Artemis' kiss and responded by running his hands through the assassin's dark, tangled hair. The assassin's hand slowed, stroking the drow's chest with a fingertip, then sliding the back of his hand against Jarlaxle's waist. Artemis moved his hand up and down the drow's thigh. Jarlaxle pushed down on the back of the assassin's head with one hand in response. He found himself wanting Artemis to touch the place between his legs, wanting to feel pressure on it. Locked in a kiss, he silently pleaded, trying to will the assassin to do it. His chest heaved in and out.

Artemis felt the drow's skin become slick with sweat. It began to seep through his shirt, making it cling to his frame damply. He lifted his hands and broke off their kiss, breathing heavily, and began to lift up his shirt. He still kept his eyes closed, luxuriating in every sensation. He felt Jarlaxle take hold of his shirt as well, helping him. Jarlaxle pulled it over his head in one swift yank and tossed it to the floor with a muted thud. The elf ran his hands over Artemis' arms as if taking in every bulge, every depression of his skin.

I've forgotten about breakfast, Jarlaxle thought, out of nowhere, and his stomach contracted, tense with hunger. He flickered open his eyes, only then realizing that they had been shut. Artemis was blurry. He was startled to see small, fine black hairs trail down in a line from the man's stomach to his belt. Artemis saw him looking and watched Jarlaxle's fascination with his mouth slightly open in shock.

Jarlaxle cleared his throat. "I'd forgotten about breakfast," he said.

Artemis closed the gap between their bodies, their bare chests rubbing against each other. The assassin was surprised to suddenly realize that he was covered in sweat all over as well. He hadn't even been aware of it. "What's breakfast?" Artemis said, his voice coming from deep in his throat.

"I don't know," Jarlaxle said, seeming distracted. "We haven't ordered it yet." He wrapped his arms around his companion's waist, feeling hard muscles there. "Do you want to go…" The assassin pressed into him, nuzzling his neck. Artemis wrapped his own arms around Jarlaxle's waist. The drow tightened his arms. He felt Artemis' primal region pulse in response.

They were so aroused… And he was so hungry. He was torn between the two desires, both of which wanted to take precedence. This is no way to have sex, he thought. But then in response came the thought, But even if we don't do that right now, the timing is right. He had a sinking feeling that they'd never get around to doing this anytime soon if he left and got breakfast.

"You are more important than eating breakfast," he said gallantly, kissing Artemis on the mouth. He ran distracted hands through the assassin's hair, and then smiled at him.

The assassin tried to say something, but a low growl was all that came out. He was surprised by the limitations of lust on the vocabulary. Sweat was beginning to chill him. Inadvertently, he shivered.

Jarlaxle immediately grabbed the tangled comforter, shook it out, and wrapped it around the two of them. Artemis curled up against him, now using him for warmth. He held the assassin in his arms and settled back down onto the bed. He started to feel a little sleepy.

Artemis kissed his collarbone, the assassin's goatee brushing against Jarlaxle's skin. He reached out and toyed with Artemis' facial hair, somewhat amused of the human tendency to sculpt hair growing on their face into certain shapes. "What is this for?" Jarlaxle said, tilting his head.

"Mmm?" Artemis took his hand and kissed it.

Just a few months ago – He frowned. No, just a week ago, he would be disgusted at himself for behaving this way. For being in bed with, of all people he could possibly be in bed with, Jarlaxle. For finding something sensual in his partner, the madcap, garrulous, unpredictable, and almost unreliable person he relied on to make money in this world as something other than an assassin. He almost retched; he had to shut his eyes to make the feeling go away.

What is wrong with me? Why am I denying this? What's made it so repugnant to me? Sense, one of the voices in his mind replied. He shoved it away. There has to be a reason my suspicious side is acting up now instead of when I was in the middle of kissing 'my business partner', if that's what I'm objecting to.

I'm afraid of what's going to happen.

"Are you going to hire a whore the moment I leave?" The assassin's voice grated; he didn't want to have to ask, but he did have to in order to silence his own maddening doubts.

"Am I going to –" Jarlaxle started to repeat, and then broke it off, shaking his head with an expression of disbelief. His eyes were shocked. Then he broke out in a mixture between a frown and a smile, as if he couldn't decide whether or not Artemis were joking, or crazy. "What kind of question is that to ask?" he said. "I don't understand you, abbil. If I have a man who is willing to work with me, respect me, and be in bed with me, why could I possibly want to throw my money away on gaudily dressed trollops who giggle too much and insist on kissing my head?"

Artemis broke out into a grin that was almost too wide to manage without hurting his face. Relief stretched his facial muscles beyond the bounds of comfort. "I'm sorry," he said, his gray eyes feral and mischievous. "That _was_ a stupid question."

"I'm glad you think so."

Artemis held him down and kissed him soundly on the mouth.

Jarlaxle wrapped his legs around Artemis' torso, and they were back where they had left off. They were so into it that they lost track of time and missed lunch.


	11. Epilogue

Jarlaxle descended the stairs slowly, with a great flourish, and nodded his hat to the people below in the common room.

No one looked up, and no one cared.

This did not faze Jarlaxle, who always pretended as though he had an audience on their feet applauding. He was wearing his wide brimmed purple hat, red plumes garishly clashing. On his face he wore a dazzling white smile that lit up his face and an eye patch over his left eye. His small vest didn't really cover anything up. It was about as large as the heavy leather belt festooned with pockets and loops for holding the various potions and wands he always had on him. His boots clanked dramatically, only to echo into silence in his succeeding steps. A shining cape reached his ankles, constantly merging into new colors.

And he wanted everyone to notice.

Behind him, bad-tempered at being stuck behind Jarlaxle, was Artemis, who scowled and waited for Jarlaxle to get down to the common room already. The drow might not mind hunger, but it was one of many things that made Artemis homicidal. Especially when food was available and someone was keeping him from getting it. Artemis was sure that everyone did notice Jarlaxle, every detail; they just didn't _want_ to see him. He gave Jarlaxle a warning shove.

The drow mercenary stumbled down the last two steps and then walked into the room with a dignified strut as if nothing had happened.

"It's a lovely evening, isn't it?" Jarlaxle said to the whole group; mostly unshaven men, and two weary women in modest blue dresses and wool cloaks looking haggard. The drow mercenary gracefully sank into a wooden chair and lounged contentedly. Artemis had only seen him like this after an especially good session with someone behind closed doors.

Bearing this in mind, Entreri tried to take it as a compliment. An annoying, distasteful, implied compliment, he thought, but a compliment. "I'd like some food," he said.

"Of course, abbil, of course," the drow said with an inane smile. They had both bathed and dressed in clean clothing after their extended roll in the hay, and in his mind, everything was perfect. This meant that he was rather distracted, perhaps willfully so, in order that everything remain perfect.

"Now," the assassin said, glaring daggers at the back of a serving maid.

"Now, now," Jarlaxle said. "Be nice to the staff." Somehow or other he enticed one of the women to come over to them. He tipped his hat to her. "Excuse me. My friend and I are very hungry; I don't suppose you know of anything large enough to satisfy the appetites of two men." He smiled apologetically. He also glanced down at the barmaid's cantaloupe sized breasts with mild surprise.

Artemis caught Jarlaxle's glance and darkened. He bit his lip to keep from saying anything in front of the whole room of people.

The barmaid looked puzzled. "You mean, a roast, or something like that?"

"What a splendid idea," Jarlaxle said, his eyes back on her face. He beamed at her.

The assassin grumbled, but it was too low for the woman to hear.

"Roast chicken, if you please," Jarlaxle said. "And roasted potatoes. With mushrooms. And stuffing."

The barmaid said something in a resigned tone of voice and walked away bearing their order. She seemed not to like the looks of either of them.

Entreri was angry. And he knew this; he was a prisoner to his emotions, but damned if anyone else was going to figure out what was going on between him and Jarlaxle because he gave something away.

The drow mercenary looked over at him, no longer broadly grinning, and Artemis could have sworn his eyes grew wiser and older. If Artemis wasn't imagining it, he thought Jarlaxle even looked slightly guilty.

They ended up eating their meal in silence, heads bowed, which from the assassin's point of view was an act of mercy he hadn't known the drow was capable of. He knew that Artemis detested his rambling, and he exercised enough self-control to stop. It made Artemis wonder how many times he'd been victimized by Jarlaxle's endless talking simply because the drow felt like torturing him.

"We have a lot of planning to do, wouldn't you say?" Jarlaxle said at the end of their meal. The roast chicken was nothing but bits of fat and bone now sitting amongst a few smears of stuffing and gravy. Artemis noticed that his friend had been unspeakably hungry; and yet, he hadn't said a word about his nearly two days of skipped meals. Had he done such things before? It wasn't very much of a stretch of the imagination.

The drow wiped his mouth with a napkin and then stood up, adjusting his hat with a satisfied smile.

Artemis didn't know what kind of planning Jarlaxle was talking about.

They left for their room together, if not precisely side by side, then companionably close.

"So what planning are you talking about?" Artemis asked as they walked down the hallway to their room.

The moment Jarlaxle closed the door behind them and tapped the doorframe with one of his wands, he wordlessly closed the gap between them and kissed the assassin on the lips.

He knew he would regret it, but he gave into his anger and shoved Jarlaxle as hard as he possibly could.

The drow stumbled back further into the room.

"You're enjoying yourself," Artemis said. He glared darkly. He was shaking slightly, tense, so tense that his muscles ached. "As my lover, you can stop conversation and get what you want from me." He didn't know what was going to happen, but he felt that if that drow took one step towards where he was standing, he would kill him. "I guess you'll arrange it so that I never have to leave this room." He didn't know what he was talking about.

"Never," Jarlaxle said. His eyes were dull with pain as he looked at Artemis. "That's not what this was about." He didn't know that things would take such a turn for the worse, but he knew that it was his fault for having neglected and mismanaged his friend badly enough for him to confront the drow mercenary. He felt a twinge of stabbing pain in his chest, remembering that this non-negotiable sense of responsibility was exactly what Zaknafein had been talking about. He's been trying to tell me not to burden myself with these feelings, he thought.

But looking at the assassin that had become his friend, he knew that he couldn't have it any other way. He wouldn't allow it. The responsibility rested on him, and it always had. "I am not trying to take anything from you," he said. "Least of all, your freedom. Your freedom is something that I have always admired in you; I would never blacken your heart against me in such a way."

"You want me in bed," Artemis said, aggressively gesturing to it.

Jarlaxle took a step towards him, his hands out raised where Artemis could see him and his manner calming. "I want you by my side as my partner," he said.

"Vith!"

The drow mercenary paused. His expression was startled. For a moment, either of them spoke. "_What_ did you say?" Jarlaxle said.

The assassin bowed his head and examined the worn wooden floorboards. He muttered something. It was, "I didn't mean to say that." The very admission went against the grain of Artemis' character, which was why he was so sullen.

"I'm going to make a drow out of you," Jarlaxle said, with his mouth hanging open in a curious, wondering way. An uncertain smile twitched on his lips. He didn't sound as though he were pleased; he almost sounded as if he expected himself to be a bad influence.

The assassin didn't know what to say. So he did what he did in situations like that and said nothing.

"I do," Jarlaxle said. "I mean that. I wish to be your partner." His sense of amusement lingered.

Artemis averted his gaze before the drow tempted him with one of his honesty-inspiring direct looks and made eye contact with him.

"If this is about the woman who served us our meal, I do not understand how to lay your suspicions to rest," Jarlaxle said. "I am not going to ignore every woman we meet altogether; that would look far too suspicious to keep our relationship under wraps."

The assassin knew that. He was frustrated that 'their relationship' only seemed to function in a bubble. The moment reality got involved, it fell to pieces like al dente cake.

It was his own insecurities getting in the way. Rationally, he knew that it was not sane of him to automatically feel so much pain. That was part of the problem.

He was not, in any way, what he considered a 'normal' member of society. He didn't react in 'normal', what he considered stupid or naïve, ways. "Why…" he said. His throat closed up. "Why did we go through this for the past five days?" Artemis closed his eyes. "Why did this happen?"

He heard Jarlaxle come closer to him; he knew that he hadn't heard for any other reason than Jarlaxle had decided on purpose to make his boots ring out against the wooden floor. Another act of consideration.

Jarlaxle studied him. "I don't know," he said. "But I do know that if it happened at all, you have been thinking about it for far longer than the past five days."

The assassin trembled.

"You _encouraged _me to become closer to you," the drow mercenary said, and he stepped close enough to put his arms around Artemis in a loose embrace. "You let it happen."

"I don't know why," the man said. "I couldn't find more meaning in our traveling. In our escapes. In the way we go through our ritual of getting in over our heads only for a commodity that has to be earned over and over again and we never get any closer to escaping this life."

Ironic, since Jarlaxle knew that in the beginning, this new life they'd made for themselves as mercenaries had been the escape from the life they'd had before. Jarlaxle had been trapped in a society that lived in the dark, in more ways than one. And Artemis had been an assassin, whose soul was almost dead and died a little every time he took another order to murder. "It hasn't worked out the way you wanted it to," Jarlaxle said.

Now Artemis hated him for being able to pierce his defenses and strip him down to what he was really thinking. He'd ignored much of what he thought and felt, sacrificing it for what he'd believed was efficiency. Necessity. Survival. Now, he felt as though the drow were looking at every inch of his body and declaring his shortcomings in matters that Entreri had thought he hadn't really needed.

Jarlaxle had a way of telling Artemis with only his eyes that the small lump of memories, emotions, and pain that had been the only surviving part of him before his profession had been deemed a weakness. Not for still existing, but for Artemis' repeated attempts to excise it like a tumor. Something that the assassin couldn't understand.

He'd thought, in the beginning, that Jarlaxle would understand him and his mindset, even agree with him, and their partnership would be one of silence. Jarlaxle had instead shown himself to be of a completely different philosophy. He'd told Entreri that he thought Entreri was someone to be saved.

Saved from himself.

Artemis was hardly conscious of the drow's arms around him. He felt dead. Then he remembered that Jarlaxle's words implied a question; he wanted Artemis to elaborate. "If anything had worked out the way I wanted it to," Artemis said, "I wouldn't be alive right now."

Jarlaxle drew him into a tighter embrace, stroked a lock of his hair behind his ear with long, thin fingers, and kissed his ear. The drow wasn't sure that that was the correct response, but it was the one he wanted to use. Even a day before, he would have smiled and invited Artemis to talk more in the hopes of cleansing the trouble from his friend that way. But lately he'd noticed that no matter how long the talk, Artemis always remained troubled and distrustful. He hadn't trusted himself to do any more for the assassin. "If you wish, I may provide a temporary distraction," he said. That was his coping mechanism, not Artemis', but he was willing to share in the hopes that the assassin might try it.

"Not a distraction," Artemis said. "If you want to, and I want to, then fine." He looked into Jarlaxle's eyes, his gray eyes dark. "For me, it will never be a distraction." He thought he only felt his emptiness so keenly because for the first time in months, he'd had a day where he was truly happy. Coming down off that feeling was sickening.

"Alright," Jarlaxle said, rubbing his hand gently up and down Artemis' back. "Do you?"

The assassin said, feeling helpless with despair, "No."

Jarlaxle thought it would be a gesture of good faith to help Artemis ready for bed; after all, he saw that the assassin was emotionally and physically drained by their hours together. For once, he felt the same way.

He started unlacing the assassin's leather jerkin, stopping to let Artemis remove it and drop it to the floor. Artemis undid the buttons of his shirt underneath, and shrugged it off, letting Jarlaxle take it.

Artemis walked over to the bed. While they were out, the maid had come and changed their sheets, leaving the bed looking crisp and new. He sat down, pulled off his boots, and slipped underneath the gray covers.

Jarlaxle nodded at him, then removed his hat and earrings. He made the decision to take off his vest, as well, and then stretched, muscles rippling. Then he, too, came over to the bed and took off his boots.

However, in a change of routine, he got in at the same side as Artemis and made the assassin move over. He curled up against the assassin and made himself comfortable.

Neither one of them commented on this.


End file.
